


running blind and other dangers

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blind Character, Bullying, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22998877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: Bellamy Blake is on his third arrest and facing juvenile detention, not to mention more of those god-awful kleptomania support groups.  John Murphy is blind, stuck living with the Jahas, and in desperate need of an outlet for his snowballing anger. Bellamy owes Arkadia fifty hours of community service, and the Franco High cross-country team won't have Murphy without a guide that can keep up with him.Everyone gets what they want— if Bellamy and Murphy can learn to keep pace with one another.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy
Comments: 87
Kudos: 110





	1. beeferoni and the notorious bellamy blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right off the bat i want to say thank you for popping in despite this being an unfinished work. hello! you already KNOW this is an if i had wings au let's GO
> 
> i know i'm being very bold in posting chapters of an unfinished fic but i expect it to be quite large and the dearth of murphamy content during this hiatus is absolutely criminal and i didn't want to sit on this for months while you all starve to death, so i hope you will accept my sporadic updates. but this WILL be finished, i promise you. i will not abandon you ever.
> 
> thank you so much for coming by and checking this out. lots more to come, and i hope you enjoy

“You can’t keep doing this.”

Murphy popped a globe of bubblegum, slouching another inch down into the slick chair. If this took any longer, he’d be folded up on the floor. “Doing what?”

“ _Doing—?_ You stabbed Myles Turner in the stomach with your cane, John! You’re lucky he only bruised, and especially lucky that his parents aren’t pressing charges. You could have really hurt that boy.”

“But I didn’t, did I?” Murphy retorted. “He’ll be good as new tomorrow and back to blaming his farts on deaf kids and pushing wheelchair-users into traffic. It’s a Christmas miracle.”

Principal Jaha was quiet and thoughtful for a long, boring moment. Murphy snapped his gum again.

“I’m sorry they tease you, John, from the bottom of my heart. But it’s time you start resolving things with your words and deal with your anger. You must aspire to be the bigger man.”

Murphy frowned. “Why would I use my words? I have a stick.”

“John,” the principal chided, unusually stern and impatient, which turned Murphy’s mood a bit more sour.

“Expel me, then.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

Murphy shrugged, creaking into a stand and unfolding his cane. “In that case, I’d like to be excused. Pike is doing a lesson on punnett squares that I expect to be nothing short of mind-blowing and if I miss it I think I might die.”

Long-sufferingly, Jaha sighed. “Go on, and try not to start World War III on the way there. Two hours detention, and we’re having beeferoni tonight.”

Murphy’s cane bumped the wall, and he traced his hand down to the doorknob, yanking it open and slamming it behind him. The blinds rattled as he swept his way to biology.

“Fucking beeferoni.”

Home to cloud-touched pines, and weaving paths through glistening ferns, and a sparkling stream washing over glittering stones, Arker's Creek Park was supposed to be someplace beautiful. He wouldn’t really know. Smelled good, though.

Murphy swept his cane to the end of a straight, kicking rocks into the ditch as he went, and then returned to where he’d started, collapsing the cane and shoving it into his backpack. Then, bouncing twice on his toes, he crooked his elbows and launched off from his heels, pushing through wind and beating his sneakers over pebbles nestled in the dirt trail, waiting to feel them slide over dewey grass to signify the end of a straight.

At the end of that straight, he turned from the grass along the curve back onto the dirt path, extended his cane again, and swept ahead of himself, this time mapping an upward slope. He’d run hard enough so far to be aware of his breathing, but was not nearly as aware of it as he would’ve liked to be.

Murphy wanted to run until he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to run until his legs ached. He wanted to sweat and to pant and to hunch over and hold his knees like he’d done something. He wanted to run until he hit a finish line, he wanted to run until there was nowhere left to go. Murphy wanted to run until he felt free.

He blasted up the hill and found the cold wind running its bristles against his skin at the peak of it far too soon, and anticipated walking slowly down only to hike back up, run for ten seconds, and then have to do it again.

His cane creaked in his fists. “Screw this,” he thought aloud. He knew this trail, knew its curves, knew there was nothing up ahead. He folded up the cane and slotted it into his backpack, cracked his neck, and jumped off from the peak with fierce determination and, probably, a whole lot of stupid.

He ran and he ran and he ran, and even had to pull up to slow his momentum as the distance disappeared under his feet. For a moment, he felt like he was flying.

Then he flipped headfirst over a safety fence.

He landed hard in a pile, a palm skimming over pebbles, a knee slamming the inside of his elbow, and his head bouncing off of the ground like a basketball.

It actually might have been funny if it had happened to anyone else.

“Shit,” he cursed, untangling his limbs from themselves and sitting up out of the dirt, swaying. He reached out first to feel the jagged mesh of the fence to reaffirm his suspicions, and then dabbed at his forehead with fingers that came away sticky and smelling of copper. “Fantastic.”

Hurried footsteps began to approach, then, and Murphy stood and brushed himself off and tried his very best to look like he did it all on purpose.

“Bad tumble,” said the savior of the week, “but impressive vault! Simone Biles just woke up in a cold sweat somewhere. Need a hand?”

Fingers bumped his ribs as the girl reached out to him and he stepped forward into her hand. “Oh, right,” she said, and then fumbled for his skinned palm and tugged him toward the barrier, which normally would have pissed him off, but Murphy didn’t feel like he was currently in much of a position to be picky. Any longer being gawked at and petted from inside a pen and he might have started to feel a bit insulted.

He felt around for the top of the fence and then took a wide step over it, bending it beneath him, and then bounced forward on one foot as he swung the other leg over too, feeling clumsy and disoriented. “Good thing that was there,” he muttered, once stable. “I might have gotten hurt.”

The girl chimed with a quiet laugh, releasing his hand and then suddenly taking it again, shaking it firmly. He winced as she squeezed his gritty wounds. “You’re Murphy, right?”

He frowned, surprised, but supposed he was. “Last I checked. And you?”

Pleased, she dropped his hand, paused, and then grabbed it a third time to shake it again. “I’m Octavia. I go to Franco too. I’ve seen you around, you’re a junior.” Then she scoffed at herself, smacking a hand to something, maybe her forehead. “Sorry, you know that.”

“Yeah,” Murphy agreed, taking what he hoped was a discreet step backwards. “Well, thanks for the hand, I guess.”

“No problem. I was sitting at the picnic tables over there— well, to your right– when I saw you go down. Looks like they’re making a path down to the picnic shelter.”

Murphy grumbled nothing-words, internally cursing whatever hopeless idiot got lost on their way to the picnic shelter in an empty field so as to inspire need of a path to it. 

He yanked his backpack strap onto his shoulder again and traced the fence to its corner, walking lopsided through the ditch, and turned back onto the path past the miniature construction site. Octavia, to his surprise, hurried after him, but Murphy didn’t comment. She did him a favor, after all, so he’d wait a few more yards before telling her to fuck off.

They walked in silence, and Murphy listened to the crickets chirping, the flora rustling, and the clicking of digital keys as Octavia typed out a text, the rip of velcro on velcro as she likely nestled her phone back into one of those armbands for runners who couldn’t get anywhere without the illusions of power inspired by either Skrillex or the entirety of _Hamilton_ , depending on the uniquely weird kind of shit either person had been through.

“You’re fast,” Octavia blurted suddenly, as if she’d been actually thinking it over. “Like, you’re basically Flash.”

“The Flash,” Murphy amended, quickening his pace. Octavia matched him step for step, and he felt mostly the same about it as he would if a utility van with tinted windows were trailing patiently alongside him.

“You should join the cross-country team. I mean, I’ve suggested this to just about anyone I think could maybe knock Ontari Colderbrook down to runner-up in the county championship, but you really are fast.”

Murphy sniffed, swiping his fingers under his nose to show how much he didn’t care, and how unbothered he was by the line of conversation, which certainly didn’t strike a nerve. “I’m a raised insurance premium is what I am. At least, that’s what your coach said when I showed up at last year’s tryouts. She says she’ll give me a call if she finds a guide for me, but I can’t imagine she’s looking very hard.”

“You could sign a waiver!” Octavia argued, sounding incredibly indignant on his behalf, and Murphy, helplessly, found himself amused. “Any one of us could get hurt out there! That’s not fair!” she shouted, and he imagined her shaking her fists at the sky.

“Maybe,” he mumbled, thumbing another slow-crawling rivulet of blood from his forehead. “Maybe not. ‘Blind Kid Trips Over Ant, Dies Gruesomely in Forest’ isn’t exactly great publicity.”

“Well, at least the people at your vigil might make the crowd at the next race look a bit bigger.”

Despite himself, Murphy’s face twitched into a whole, finished grin.

Octavia from Franco walked him all the way home, insisting she was just down the street. Together they stood before the two-story townhouse that Murphy was, if not happy, grateful to call home.

He knew the mailbox read 'Jaha' and that ‘& Murphy’ was belatedly painted on beneath, a bit like how suburban white people might add the name of their beloved hypoallergenic dog.

“They’ll paint over it when I’m gone,” Murphy said quietly, without knowing why. “The mailbox.”

“You should use it to your advantage,” Octavia suggested, scheming and not understanding him at all. “I mean, seriously, your foster dad’s the principal. You could probably get the keys to the basement pool.”

“There is no basement pool,” Murphy corrected her, waiting for Wells to jump out of the front door and rant and rave about their curfew. “Total myth.”

“Exactly what I would expect to hear from one of _them._ ”

Murphy scowled as she pressed a bandaid against his forehead and her footsteps began disappearing down the sidewalk, steadily growing fainter as she made her supposed way home.

“Am not.”

Octavia’s far-away voice was bright and jovial, like no one’s voice but Jaha’s had sounded with him for years, when she called back, “See you at school, Flash!”

When she was long gone, Murphy smiled. Just a little. “See you.”

“You stole a snake.”

“Among other things.”

Bellamy’s mom covered her harrowed face with her hands, dragging the skin down until the pinks of her eyes drooped. Octavia grimaced, hovering between the seat next to their mother and the door like she wasn’t sure whether to escape by door or window.

“A ball python, and just under two-hundred dollars. The owner of that pet store is a good, honest man you know. A stand-up member of his community.” Bellamy looked back to his attorney, an apparent family friend whose service was therefore only a heartbreaking few hundred dollars, and who was saying more words than usual. He looked briefly disappointed, which annoyed Bellamy to no end, but then returned to his usual and unflappably bored demeanor. “Then there’s the matter of evading the police. On foot, too, for… well I’ll be damned. Five miles.”

“Five miles!” Octavia mouthed excitedly. Bellamy shook his head and tried to look stern. _I_ run from the cops for five miles, _not_ you.

“Well Mr. Blake, up until this charge you’ve only got a couple of other counts of petty theft and resisting arrest. I’d say you’re likely to get off with probation, community service, and some klepto support group meetings instead of jail time if you plead guilty, but considering this is your third arrest, we’re really gonna have to roll over and beg.”

“I’m not a klepto. I was gonna sell the snake.”

 _“Bellamy!”_ his mother hissed, which seemed unnecessary, and he startled a bit. “Look, I can’t have him out ringing bells in a Santa hat all night. The last two times this happened he had to quit his job. He works in the evenings again and he needs to keep this one, and he _will_ stay in school. So when the hell do you expect him to do community service?”

_“I_ don’t expect him to do anything,” said the bored attorney, boredly. “If you can think of some kind of community service he could do at school, we could suggest it to the judge. Otherwise it’s out of my hands.”

“At the school? What’s he supposed to do, teach a class? Look at him!”

Bellamy frowned, looking down at his perfectly normal shirt and jeans. When he looked up again the attorney was frowning pityingly back at him.

“Wait!” Octavia shouted suddenly, as Bellamy was reaching up to see if his shirt was on backwards. She jumped up from a leather chair, which squeaked horribly and urgently. “What would the judge say to him assisting a disabled student with an extra-curricular activity?”

The attorney shrugged, pushing glasses so ugly and wiry that Bellamy felt like he had no choice but to call them spectacles up his nose so they could resume their slow crawl back down. 

“That would suffice, if we can make a case that this student actually needs assistance and that Mr. Blake is capable of providing it, and that the assistance is somehow related to Mr. Blake’s charges.”

“Good,” Octavia nodded. “‘Cause he’s gonna need to run.”

At his look of bewilderment Octavia grinned like an evil genius, and Bellamy had to imagine entertaining the hyperactive cthulhu in the school basement for the public good was a step above getting harassed by tween arsonists to harbor contraband in his asshole.

He just had to, because this was the last chance he had.

When Murphy stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him, it was eerily silent in the Jaha & Murphy household. He hung up his windbreaker on the hook by the door, toed off his sneakers, and padded into the living room, tracing the short-shorn, polyester length of the couch to its end. Then, just as the rug gave way to hardwood under his feet before he reached the stairs, came the single ‘twing’ of a lamp flashing on.

“How long have you been sitting there waiting to do that?”

“Two hours!” Wells bellowed.

Murphy sighed, picking at a nit on his shirt. “Can we just skip the lecture? It’s not that late.”

“You missed beeferoni,” Wells snapped. “Dad was worried and you ruined his appetite, so now we have leftovers.”

“Jesus,” Murphy griped. “It’s terrible enough the first time.”

“I know!” moaned Wells. “You can’t just— you can’t be out like that with your phone off! I just barely kept him from calling the police, you know how he gets! Worried sick! Where were you?”

“Graveyard,” Murphy answered, sniffling. “So hard this time of year.” Maybe Wells would fall for it this time.

“I’m serious!” he cried, and okay, but it was worth a shot. 

Wells’ socked feet moved quickly over the rug, stopping just short of Murphy’s as Wells abruptly touched his forehead, a finger skimming over the slickness of a new band-aid, at which Murphy gave a surprised flinch. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Murphy argued, swatting his hand away.

“So you’re just really into _Hello Kitty_ now, is that it?” asked Wells, question thick with sarcasm as his hand returned and he peeled up the bandaid to inspect the wound beneath it.

 _Hello Kitty._ Damn you, Octavia.

“Were you out running again?”

Murphy kept quiet, moving to grab the railing in the stairwell and taking a step up. Wells, however, did not excuse him.

“I’m about to grab your wrist,” Wells warned, and then, _ugh,_ actually grabbed him. Murphy yanked half-heartedly away, but Wells was so much stronger and conversations with him were not often finished until he said they were. “It’s too dangerous, Murphy. I’ll run with you if it’s such a big deal. Please, just stop sneaking out to do it.”

 _‘Such a big deal,’_ Murphy thought, sneering. _‘If it’s such a big deal that you get to do what everyone else does without someone breathing down your goddamn neck every second, maybe we’ll let you leave the house,’_ _they said._

“Like you care,” he scoffed, feeling Wells’ grip loosen in disappointment, and jerked his arm away to pound up the stairs. When he reached the top he slid a hand along the hallway wall, and stopped when he bumped his bedroom’s door frame, pausing at the sound of a quiet, level voice floating up from the bottom of the stairwell.

“I do,” Wells whispered. “Maybe one day you’ll believe that.”

On the day of Bellamy’s bench trial, the only person in the gallery was his little sister. His mother was somewhere else in the building he was sure, having left with a grumble about needing coffee and leaving Bellamy with no more than a stink-eyed look to get him through his time before the judge.

They’d discussed his age, his employment, and whether or not he could read. There were an obnoxious number of questions about his competency, so many that Bellamy was beginning to doubt it himself. The prosecutor explained the many horrid ways in which he robbed an old bald guy’s pet store and disrespected a good, upstanding member of his community and put an innocent and expensive animal in harm’s way, one whose whereabouts were still a mystery.

The time for Bellamy to roll over and beg was closing in, and he felt like a dumb dog with fleas.

“Before the court imposes a sentence, I’ll call on each of the attorneys for the prosecution and defense. Is there anything else which you wish to state to the court today?”

“Not on behalf of the prosecutor, Your Honor,” said the attorney at the next table.

“And not on behalf of the defendant, Your Honor,” intoned his bored attorney, who looked less bored now and more quietly horrified at the prospect of Bellamy speaking.

“Mr. Blake, you have the right to address the court today before the imposition of your sentence. You are not required to speak, but the law affords you this right if you wish to do so. Is there anything you would like to state to the court?”

At Bellamy’s questioning look, the bored-terrified attorney gave a short, stuttered nod of go-ahead. “Um, yes, Your Majesty,” Bellamy said, and then his attorney reached slowly up to hold his heart as if he’d been shot.

The judge frowned, but motioned for him to go on. “Speak, then.”

“I want—“

 _“Humbly!”_ Octavia whispered loudly from the pews, to the judge’s disdain, and Bellamy straightened up.

“I _humbly_ want to be sentenced to community service rather than juvenile detention. I’m working at the Speed-o-Mart—“

“Which one?” the judge interrupted.

“Uh, the one on Myrtle.”

“The Icee machine there is consistently broken,” he said as if it were Bellamy’s fault, and then jotted down a note. “Continue.”

Bellamy cleared his throat, feeling more and more as if he were losing points that he didn’t know he had to lose. Fucking Icee machine. 

“I’m on track to graduate with honors, be valedictorian even. I’d like to stay in school and continue working, and give back to the community by assisting a disabled student at my school. He’s blind, and needs a guide to train and race with him so he can be on the cross-country team. At least my sister says so, and the coach said I could. It’s related to my crime, because, well, I would have to run, and since I ran from the cops—“

“Five miles!” Octavia blurted.

“Quiet!” shouted the judge, banging his gavel and sending Octavia shooting back down into her seat.

“I believe that’s all my client has to say,” interrupted Bellamy’s attorney, shoving his crooked little glasses up to his nervous little eyes again. “We hope you’ll be lenient and consider allowing Mr. Blake to remain with his family, give back to his community, and continue doing well in school.”

“This is your third arrest, Mr. Blake. How do I know you won’t just end up right back here?”

“I won’t,” Bellamy swore, not knowing whether he meant it or not. Every time was always the last time. “I’ll never do it again.”

The judge leaned back in a swiveling chair and peered thoughtfully at him as if trying to see into his soul, and got nowhere close. “Ball python,” he muttered, disbelieving, and then gave a drawn-out sigh. “Mr. Blake, I find you guilty on all three counts against you, these being breaking and entering, petit larceny, and evading arrest. I am ordering that you serve a year of supervised release, requiring all standard conditions which will be provided to you in a copy of the judgement, and including the special conditions of paying restitution in the amount of three-hundred dollars—“

Bellamy raised his hand. “But, I only took a hundred and eighty, Your Holiness?”

The judge’s frown deepened, and Bellamy noticed that he looked an awful lot like a snowman melting in the sun. “You lost the snake, son. It was quite an expensive snake. This restitution will be payable to the United States District Clerk in Arkadia, Virginia, for disbursement to the Tails and Whiskers Pet Supply, over a period of time set forth in the judgement. You will also participate in a diversion program as directed by the United States Probation Office in Arkadia, Virginia, and complete fifty hours of community service.”

“With the blind kid?”

“Yes, if you can secure it, I'm sure that’ll do.”

Bellamy raised his brows miserably. “…Fifty hours?"

“Fifty hours,” the judge agreed. 

The gavel came down, and Bellamy wished he were a snowman, melting.

“How do we define irony?”

The class sat despondently like dying plague victims, as usual, and Murphy fiddled absently with his phone's rubber case as it dutifully recorded the lecture he'd never listen to again. A ball of paper hit him in the back of the head and Murphy flinched before remembering that this, too, was not unusual. He reached down and felt around for it, before closing his fingers around it and stuffing it into his backpack.

“Yes, Jasper!” Ms. Cartwig suddenly cried, no doubt pleasantly surprised.

“Getting the wrinkles out of clothes!” he answered.

Another ball batted against Murphy, falling short and skimming over his shoulder. Murphy took it from his lap and shoved it into his bag.

“Not quite, but thank you for introducing an alternative perspective to the discussion, Jasper," said Ms. Cartwig, generously. "Anyone else?”

“Is it like, when people tweet about how much they hate social media? And then they get loads of likes on that, so they tweet a whole bunch more?” 

“Yes, Harper, that’s a great—“

“Or their bio is a quote about kindness, but they’re the biggest bitch you’ve ever met?”

“Yes, but let’s try to keep it clean,” Ms. Cartwig conceded, sounding exhausted, but Murphy forgot to listen further as another ball of scrap paper hit him in the neck. He fished it from the ground and packed it away, tamping down his frustration by reminding himself that one day soon it would all be worth it. Or, at least a little bit worth it.

“Hey, Stevie Wonder, you’ll need to make those rocks if you actually wanna sink,” Connor whispered from behind him, supposedly having traded seats with the quiet girl who usually sat there, who Murphy liked marginally better.

Murphy ignored him, but grabbed tight to the edge of his desk as his chair was yanked and tilted back into a precarious hind-legged wobble. “What’s the matter? You deaf too?”

There was a chorus of whispered giggles, and some half-hearted muttering in his defense from people who didn’t know him very well and probably wouldn’t have defended him if they had. Ms. Cartwig was still chattering away about what was revealed by the hypocrisy of Miss Gates in _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , single-mindedly focused as ever at the whiteboard.

Murphy took in a long breath through his nose, keeping his feet on the ground and hands braced on the desk until whenever Connor deigned to put the chair back down on all fours.

“Not my fault one hit put your boyfriend out of commission,” Murphy muttered, and held in his gasp as Connor shoved his chair forward and Murphy dropped hard against the edge of the desk, ribs pinching between it and the too-close chair.

“Myles is _not_ my—!” Connor began, enraged, but then fell silent as he realized Murphy was poking the bear. “You’re a dick, Murphy.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“No one’s gonna give a shit when you wander into the road and get run down by a semi, just saying.”

“Thanks for your honesty.”

Connor scoffed shortly against his teeth. “Watch your back,” he hissed, unconvincing in its attempts to be menacing as ever. “Oh wait, you can’t,” he added, laughter fading as the final bell rang and he shuffled back to his own desk to gather his things.

Murphy raised his brows as Ms. Cartwig desperately tried to announce the homework and the class bustled loudly around him. “Neither can you, dumbass,” he muttered, and jammed another stray paper ball into his backpack.

He unfolded his cane and made his way into the hallway, where he was sure plenty of space had just opened up as people jumped around and dodged him like he was a rogue zoo animal or a bulldozer. Not that he’d want them any closer. 

Just as he thought he was home free, making his way toward the front doors leading out to the bus lot, the intercom happily chimed, “John Murphy to Coach Griffin’s office? John Murphy to Coach Griffin’s office.”

He was torn between sighing and trudging because he hated being summoned, and breaking into a sprint because _Coach Griffin_ wanted to see _him?_

Having decided on a brisk and slightly-crazed walk, Murphy made it to her office and knocked slowly as if it were a chore, entering when she called out for him to come in. He found a chair and took a seat, scratching his ear as she remained quiet. Finally, suffocating on the awkwardness in the air somewhat and wondering what crime he was meant to be confessing, he broke.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes,” she sighed, chair creaking as she slumped back in it and evidently returned to the world, pausing as if she couldn’t bear to say what she said next. “I’ve approved someone to run as your guide for tryouts if you want to go for them, and if you’ll have him.”

Murphy’s heart stuttered in his chest and he discreetly tightened his grip on the edge of the scratchy chair, trying his best not to do something truly horrific, like looking grateful or pleased, or doing a little dance. “Who’s the unlucky winner?” he asked, buzzing under the skin.

Coach Griffin sighed again, weary and contemptuous, and as if saying a dirty word, “Any chance you’re familiar with Bellamy Blake?”

“The notorious?” Murphy asked, dubious and a little giddy all at once.

Coach Griffin sighed. “The notorious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI! me again
> 
> i hope you had fun reading this first chapter and thank you so much if you did. kudos are much appreciated and a comment would make my fucking week. excuse my french
> 
> p.s. i struggle with humor fics despite thinking myself a somewhat funny person so PLEASE for the love of god lie and tell me it's a little bit funny
> 
> come hang out on my twitter @slugcities if you want. currently beefing with isaiah washington. we have a lot of fun around here. love you
> 
> NOW FOR MY GIANT DISCLAIMER WHICH IS AN OPTIONAL READ BUT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO READ IT IF YOU HAVE A MOMENT:
> 
> i want to make a big hulking statement that i am an able-bodied and sighted person attempting to write a character that is completely blind, which is rare in itself and not an experience i'm at all familiar with beyond the research i've done for this fic. therefore absolutely nothing in this fic regarding murphy's blindness should be taken as fact without being re-researched by you. i beg of you. please. in fact, i'm not even sure it's productive for someone like me to be writing this at all, but an if i had wings murphamy au was in demand by like two people, one of them being me, and that sounded like a blast. so i thought i would provide to the best of my ability and try to write something that's fun and representative but hopefully not misinformed or distasteful. i hope you'll work with me in the comments if you find issues with anything i've written and know that i in no way intend to minimize or make light of topics like ableism, which i've very tentatively included in this story in an attempt to try not to erase the social hardships disabled people deal with because of it without crossing a line as an able-bodied and sighted person. but honestly i'm not sure where that line is, so feel free to check me (nicely, please for the love of god) in the comments. while this is a silly, fluffy story, i do obviously want it to be as sympathetic and honest as possible about the experiences of blind and otherwise disabled folks.
> 
> that being said, [deep breath] this is an if i had wings au, which is a very canadian movie starring richard harmon that ended up being incredibly gay despite its purpose. so now this fic has happened. we're all very excited about it and by we i mean me
> 
> okay, bye for real, love you


	2. abandoned rakes and an onslaught of idiots

Bellamy’s old lemon sputtered up the Jaha’s driveway and croaked to a stop beside the towering blue townhouse, and for a moment he considered just going to jail.

Then he got out of the car, stepped up to the porch, and lifted a hand to knock, because he was brave and this was simple, and everything would go swimmingly, and one day he would be a free man again.

The door swung open before his knuckles even touched the wood, and Bellamy tilted forward in surprise as Principal Jaha greeted him with a beatific smile. “Well, well! Mr. Blake, what an unexpected surprise! Surely you aren’t here for me, so which of my boys are you here to whisk off?”

Bellamy deeply resented the words ‘whisk off,’ and forced on an uncomfortable grin that was delicately wobbling on the line between being a trodden grimace and appropriately polite. “Uh, I’m here for John?”

_“John!”_ Jaha screamed, arguably right into Bellamy’s face. With an expression nothing short of wildly delighted he then leant away to call up the stairs, which Bellamy supposed he meant to do the first time. _“JOHN!”_

Bellamy took the opportunity to discreetly wipe the light mist of principal spittle from his cheek, before Jaha suddenly turned a deeply suspicious look on Bellamy, narrowing his eyes. Bellamy took a step out of the splash zone with a spike of apprehension. “What business have you with John?” Jaha demanded.

“Uh, I’m supposed to help him ru—“ Bellamy began, just as another voice came bellowing down from the stairs, footsteps pounding after it.

“SCHOOL PROJECT!” the voice screamed, which simply did not start with ‘ruh,’ and a boy came tumbling out of the stairwell flustered and fumbling with a cane, struggling similarly with the bulky headphones around his neck.

John Murphy.

“EXCELLENT!” Jaha agreed, clapping his hands together supernaturally loudly and making Bellamy and John both jump in surprise, though he thought they should probably have been used to it by now, John especially.

_“OH MY GOD! WHY ARE WE YELLING?”_ another voice shouted from somewhere in the house, which Bellamy recognized as the much-hated voice of Wells Jaha, and then didn’t know whether to scowl or laugh. He found his mouth tilted in a confused smile anyway, as the tangled up kid bumped into and then ducked under Principal Jaha’s arm to crowd Bellamy onto the porch, blue eyes wide with near-panic as he fiddled with the aux cord dangling in complicated and frazzled loops from his headphones.

“School project, we’re doing a school project, on— on—“

“Biomes,” Bellamy blurted helpfully, and John nodded like it was genius, ducking back inside to pat around the foyer floor for his sneakers.

“Yes, biomes, love biomes. Forest biomes, tundra biomes, desert biomes, all the biomes, really, can’t get enough of them,” he chattered, toeing his shoes on and beating his way toward the door again, cane smacking viciously against Principal Jaha’s ankle, who continued beaming as if it hadn’t happened. 

He is on all the drugs, Bellamy thought. There are none left for anyone else. 

“Indubitably important, environmental science is very _in_ right now,” Principal Jaha conceded, giving a hard, satisfied nod. “Be home at eight. Special sprouts.”

“Mmm, special sprouts,” said John, before reaching out and slamming the door closed on the principal’s cheery face.

Speechless, Bellamy watched as John slumped against the brick siding along the porch, catching his breath. He ran a hand through chestnut hair, whisked by and askew from what looked like a rather impromptu throwing-himself-down-the-stairs, and then tilted his head up as if looking straight at Bellamy, though his gaze seemed unfocused.

He was a strange sort of good-looking; all angular, precise features sitting under heavy brows that made him seem a bit bored even harried as he was, and round, cerulean eyes, which thankfully, and strangely, made no effort at all to peer into Bellamy’s soul.

Bellamy found himself weirdly disappointed that he’d never noticed him before.

“School project?” he asked, and John sighed, hooking his shiny red headphones around the arm of a patio chair on the porch, fingers trailing slowly away as if he hated to part with them.

“I don’t want the Jahas in my business. They’ll worry themselves to death if they find out, which would be incredibly obnoxious for me,” he explained, returning to lean against the wall.

Bellamy couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. He wondered if he’d ever get used to the way they never quite settled on Bellamy. 

John suddenly reached up a hand and swatted at the empty air, and Bellamy gathered his brows. “What was that?”

“You were being quiet. Sometimes people wave their hands in my face. Like maybe I didn't realize I can actually see, or I lied so I could bring dogs on airplanes."

Without meaning to, Bellamy barked out a laugh, and then slapped a hand over his mouth to catch it. “Sorry,” he mumbled guiltily into his palm. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny.”

But John’s mouth stretched slowly into a smile that seemed oddly pleased, and he ducked his head, scuffing at the concrete porch with the end of his cane. “I’m guessing you’re here on business,” he said. “Practice run?”

“Right,” Bellamy agreed, shaking his head and tearing his eyes away. “Coach Griffin suggested we come up with a system before tryouts.” He tilted his gaze up tentatively again, but John’s face revealed no opinion either way about Bellamy’s surprise visit. “Arker's Creek Park?”

John nodded in easy agreement, following as Bellamy made his way to the car. Bellamy looked over his shoulder in surprise, watching John trace after him with his cane. “You can hear my footsteps?

“It’s the sidewalk of my house,” John said blandly, and with a wince, Bellamy thought it might not be his eyebrows which made him look so perpetually bored. More likely, it was probably a never-ending onslaught of idiots like Bellamy.

When his cane hit a front tire, John traced the hood of the car around to the passenger side where Bellamy was holding the door open. Bellamy saw his hand coming, saw his fingertips picking up dust along the windowsill, but didn’t move. Why didn’t he move?

John’s hand shot away and curled into a fist just as his fingers left the car door and brushed the edge of Bellamy’s lower back, quick as lightning. He cleared his throat and stepped around Bellamy to find the inside of the car. “What a gentleman,” he said dryly, fumbling his way into the seat and breaking another strange spell of hypnosis on Bellamy, whose face twisted up in confusion as John reached out and slammed the door shut himself.

The ride was long and quiet, tense, even when John’s fingers danced over the dash in an effort to change the quiet radio channel and he accidentally cranked the volume up until the latest pop hit was blasting so loudly that Bellamy jolted and swerved momentarily into the other lane. John scrambled to turn it down again and then ripped his hand away, stuffing it back into his lap. 

Bellamy glanced to the side, inspecting John’s steely, pink face, as he looked simultaneously embarrassed and determined not to be. Bellamy reached out and gingerly turned the music up to a more acceptable level, and then changed it to the rock station, and to Bellamy’s great and bewildering relief, John relaxed.

He wanted this to go well, was all. They had to spend fifty hours together, at _least,_ and if Bellamy screwed this up— if he offended John, or wasn’t a good guide, or basically did anything that might persuade the kid to tell him to go fuck himself— he’d be losing his job and stabbing trash by the freeway. John had to _like_ him. Bellamy had to be _likable._ If John wanted to sit in silence and listen to the radio, they’d sit in silence and listen to the radio. They’d do whatever the hell he wanted.

They still hadn’t spoken by the time the car rolled into a space in the Arker's Creek Park lot and groaned off, and John was shoving his way out of the car before Bellamy could even say “We’re here.” Bellamy peered around the floorboards and the backseat for fast food trash to see if something rotten chased John out of the vehicle, but when he picked his head up, John had claimed a nearby picnic table and begun stretching.

“You in a hurry?” Bellamy asked as he shut the driver’s side door and joined him, propping his sneaker up on the bench and retying his shoelaces. John changed positions, throwing a heel on the bench with a _thunk_ and accidentally crowding Bellamy out of the way. Bellamy tried not to be offended as he scooted over.

“Just want to get started,” John answered, sounding sincere, and switched his attention to his other leg. “Haven’t had a good run in a while.”

And then Bellamy felt pressured to make this a good run, a great, fantastic run, and wasn’t even sure what that meant. He just _really_ didn’t want to get honked at while picking up randomly-spawning burger wrappers.

John finished stretching his legs, twisting his waist one last time before standing stock still, listening. 

He was wiry and a bit taller than Bellamy first thought, though he seemed shorter up close. His legs were long, pale, and carved with lean muscle. He looked like a runner. Whatever that meant.

“Blake?” he asked suddenly, interrupting Bellamy’s unqualified appraisal.

“Hm?”

John walked carefully and slowly toward Bellamy, stepping hesitantly toward the sound of his voice. “Cane’s in the car, and unfortunately I haven’t yet mastered the art of echolocation.”

“Oh,” Bellamy rushed forward to meet him and mentally smacked himself about thirty times. “Sorry, uh…“ he started, and then took hold of John’s elbow, who stiffened and then peeled his arm away at an exaggerated angle and ever so slowly, as if Bellamy were a wall of slime clinging to him.

“No offense, but I’m not super keen on getting hauled around like luggage,” he explained, and then sidled up next to Bellamy to lift a very careful hand of his own to Bellamy’s arm. His fingers did a little jump on Bellamy’s bicep as if surprised by the feeling, before John’s palm slid up to his shoulder and closed over it.

Bellamy peered at him and waited for him to speak, and John swallowed, taking a readying breath. “You have to be an extension of me,” he said shortly, gazing unseeing at the pebbled trail in front of their feet instead of out over the park.

“I have to be your eyes,” Bellamy agreed, nodding and looking out over the winding path as other joggers and dog-walkers spilled onto it.

“I have eyes. I need you to be my cane,” John argued, as if there was a big difference.

“Sure, whatever, I can be a cane,” replied Bellamy, not quite gathering the reason why John looked dubious all of a sudden, and took a first step toward the path. John followed. Then they took another, and another, and then they were off.

It actually went nicely for a while, if not a bit jaggedly what with John trying to turn where there were no curves, and sometimes taking hesitant or large, lurching steps for no reason, throwing them off of their pace. But the air was crisp and the sun was high and it felt good to run, even without the adrenaline high of being chased with something expensive in his arms.

Bellamy was smiling at a group of kids playing their best approximation of soccer on a nearby field, and had almost forgotten he and John weren’t connected at all despite how often the boy faltered, when the path grew suddenly narrower around a bright orange safety fence encroaching on the path and a rake left abandoned at the peak of a half-finished gravel walkway. “Getting tight through here, landscaping stuff,” Bellamy explained, intending to shift right and expecting John to shift with him.

“Left?” John asked, not yet tilting either way.

“Right,” Bellamy corrected him, trying to guide them in the opposite direction as they came up closer and closer on the obstacle, though John began peeling away, gripping Bellamy’s shoulder tighter and steps faltering as if confused.

“I said _‘right,’_ ” Bellamy insisted, struggling not to grab the other boy by his arm and pull him in his intended direction as John nearly imperceptibly fought his instructions, still drifting left.

“I heard you,” John said, face twitching with badly hidden frustration.

“Right, okay,” Bellamy agreed, bewildered as John continued pulling them toward the mess in the path like a belligerent ocean current, or an extremely focused drunk person. “So come this way.”

“It’s _you_ who’s—” he started to protest, brows knitted in confusion as Bellamy noticed John was about to clip the edge of the fence and gave up, snatching him by the elbow and attempting to yank him away at the last second. John, however, startled and ripped his arm violently away, sending him careening off-balance into the safety fence. Bellamy fumbled after him as he hip-checked the sturdy mesh and hooked the toe of his sneaker around one of the fence’s corner stakes, pitching forward to land hard on his knees.

“John,” Bellamy blurted in all the confusion, still reaching out to help and stumbling forward until he stepped on the prongs of the forgotten rake, and the long handle swung up and thwacked him solidly across the center of his face.

When the yellow stars stopped spinning around Bellamy’s head, he gave it a shake and stepped off the rake, letting it fall back down to the rocky path where John was sitting on his rear and grumbling, picking pebbles of gravel from his blood-spotted knees. Bellamy winced, feeling horribly guilty, and then guilty about feeling guilty because John probably didn’t want to be pitied, and then felt guilty that he couldn’t stop feeling guilty.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, instead of being totally useless.

John just scoffed, shaking his head and looking at once like he had everything to say in the world and nothing to say at all, pissed off and tired. Bellamy sighed, kneeling down and reaching out to brush away some of the gravel burrowed into John’s knees. As soon as the tips of his fingers touched John’s skin, the boy smacked his hand away, rubbing roughly at the place Bellamy was aiming to soothe until the rest of the little rocks fell away and he stood up again, glowering in the general direction of a frowning, now indignant Bellamy.

“Look, man, it was an accident.”

“An avoidable one I’d guess, if you weren’t an idiot,” John spat, and took a step as if to march dramatically away, but went nowhere, crossing his arms childishly instead. “Let’s just get back to the car before you lead us into a ravine.” 

Bellamy stared, eyes narrowed as he registered the unfairness of John’s response like a slap in the face.

He considered his situation for a moment; how badly he needed John to cooperate, how much trouble it could save him if this worked out. He considered pleading with him, reassuring him that there wouldn’t be anymore accidents like this, showing him they could get the hang of this and both benefit from it. 

Then he caught a glimpse of the kid standing there with a sneer on his face, arms crossed tightly as he waited to be escorted back to Bellamy’s car and driven home like a spoiled little prince, and said instead, “Hey, John? You’re a dick.”

“Surprise, surprise,” the boy answered, unhappy expression flattening out into something startlingly empty. “And my name’s Murphy.”

Bellamy grabbed _Murphy_ by the elbow and dragged him to the car like luggage whether he liked it or not, and this time he went without a fight.

“Stupid Murphy,” Bellamy griped, yanking a sneaker off in the doorway and stumbling as he did so, falling against the kitchen wall and then slinging the shoe away from him overhanded, sending it soaring past Octavia’s face where she stood in the living room watching it go.

“I take it the day was a success,” she joked, wincing as the sneaker finally thumped against a wall somewhere down the hallway.

“An absolute fucking treat,” he answered, wedging his other shoe off and slamming his keys and wallet on the counter. He jerked the fridge open and chugged half a Gatorade, and then trudged into the living room and flopped facedown on the couch.

“He hates me,” he muttered, most of it swallowed up by the cushions. “I’m gonna have to pick up ditch trash.”

Octavia leaned over the back of the couch and carded her thin fingers through his sweaty curls, and Bellamy sighed long and heavy.

“I’m sure it can be fixed. What did you say to him? You didn’t wave your hand in his face, did you?”

Bellamy untucked himself from the cushions and twisted to glare up at her. “No, I did not _wave_ my _hand_ in his face. He’s just an asshole. A rude, entitled asshole.”

His sister’s eyebrows pinched down in disbelief. “He seemed perfectly nice when _I_ met him,” she said, and then her mouth curved into a thoughtful frown. “I mean, maybe he was a little edgy…”

Bellamy scoffed. “Try more than a little.”

Octavia swung a leg over the back of the couch to sit next to him on her knees, obviously waiting for more details. Bellamy peeled himself upright and pulled a leg to his chest, glaring out of the window as he told her about Murphy snatching his cane off of the dashboard and stormily shoving his way out of Bellamy’s car, leaning back in to say, “Your car smells like a cheesy gordita crunch from the Paleolithic period,” and then slamming the door shut behind him.

When he looked over, Octavia’s lips were tightened into a wobbling line.

“It’s not funny,” Bellamy insisted. Octavia shook her head firmly, dimpling as she tried to give him a sympathetic frown around the bubbles of laughter in her cheeks, looking no more than a few seconds from bursting. 

“Worst sister ever,” he grumbled, and Octavia’s pinched mouth exploded open and gave up a great peal of giggles as she fell backwards onto the couch, trembling with the force of it.

Bellamy rolled his eyes, and pressed his lips against the arm draped over his knee to hide his grin.

John Murphy was an asshole, and certainly not funny.

After a brief first-aid session atop the toilet seat, picking the rest of the gravel from his knees, washing up, and plastering band-aids that he hoped weren’t _Hello Kitty_ themed over twin smears of Neosporin, Murphy tugged on a pair of sweatpants to hide the little injuries and made his way down to dinner.

He felt all eyes on him as he took his seat but didn’t mention it, and went along like he always did as Jaha insisted on holding hands and saying grace. Wells’ hand was loose over Murphy’s palm while Jaha gripped him tight by the other, face scrunched in fierce belief.

“Ashtar is great, Ashtar is bright, we thank the Command for our light. By their ships, we are saved, save us Ashtar from our plight.”

Murphy bumped his socked toe against Wells’ shin under the table and Wells bumped his back, the two of them sharing a silent laugh at Jaha’s expense as they dragged out, “ _A_ -men.”

After Jaha released them and tucked into his dinner, leaving the boys to shake their bruised hands out under the table and eat quietly, Murphy thought, naïvely, that maybe they’d leave the whole Bellamy debacle unspoken.

He pushed his phone across the table to Wells and asked him to download a song he heard on the radio because it was just faster and easier when Wells did it. This was normal, and both of their reactions were normal. Wells mumbled his approval of the folk-rock choice as he tapped around, and Jaha didn’t whine about phones at the table or the detriment of mass media on human society, and for a moment it was blessedly quiet, blessedly _normal._

“How was your date, John?” Jaha asked suddenly, and a piece of chicken slopped loudly off of Murphy’s fork.

“Your _what?!”_ Wells cried, table shuddering and plates jumping as his knee jolted violently against its underside. “With _who?”_

Murphy opened his mouth to argue, but Jaha was faster. “Bellamy Blake!” he answered cheerfully. “I’m sure they’ll end up like two peas in a pod, the troublemakers!”

Wells’ judgmental silence could have suffocated an air tank, and Murphy found himself feeling like he had actually done something wrong.

“Tell me you’re not dating Bellamy Blake,” he pleaded.

“Jesus,” Murphy snapped at last, shaking himself out of it. “No, I’m not dating Bellamy fucking Blake.”

“Fudging,” Jaha mumbled, trying his very hardest to stay out of the conversation for once, as per the terms of agreement penned during a recent and very difficult family intervention about taking turns speaking. The haunting idea of a talking stick was raised and had yet to explicitly be lowered, lingering threateningly overhead at all times.

Murphy politely ignored him, continuing to implore Wells not to go around telling people he was out with Blake the Horrible. “He meant a study date.”

“Good,” Wells grumbled, shoving Murphy’s phone back across the table until it bumped his knuckles. Murphy snatched it away without saying thank you. 

“What’s it to you, anyway? You’d think you were some kind of raging homophobe.”

“We've been family for six years now, I think you’d know if I were a raging homophobe. It’s just—”

“Hold on,” Murphy interrupted, face twisted up in offense. “What’s that supposed to mean? It’s not like I’m a walking Lady Gaga concert.”

“Well, you’re not exactly a walking Dave Matthews Band concert either.”

Murphy harrumphed, crossing his arms and slumping down in his chair.

“My _hypothetical_ problem is that Blake’s a… butthole. He’s been terrorizing my friends for years.”

Murphy’s eyes widened in pleased surprise, and he straightened up a bit. “I hate your friends,” he said happily. “How so?”

“How do you think? He steals their sh— crap. We’re like, ninety-nine percent sure he took the radio out of Clarke’s Porsche. But no one’s ever been able to prove it’s him, so there’s just a serial _thief_ roaming free in our school.”

Murphy imagined Wells might have made a face at his father, who probably only shrugged, never having been much of a champion of justice.

“What makes you think it was him, anyway?”

“He left a note on her dash that said, ‘Would’ve taken your T. Swift CDs off your hands, but I’m partial to her older stuff. Sorry Princess.’"

Murphy opened his mouth to argue that it could have been a coincidence seeing as Clarke Griffin’s distinct lack of money problems wasn’t exactly a secret, but then Wells continued, his voice taking on a thoughtful, slightly weirded-out tone.

“We’ve gone to school with him since way before you moved here, and he's always called her that. Plus, I think he really did like Fearless.”

Murphy clammed up, determinedly plucking at his sprouts as a grin fought its way onto his face.

Bellamy fudging Blake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again! thank you for the sweet comments on the first chapter! kudos and comments are always MEGA appreciated and by that i mean i would die for them :)
> 
> wanted to say thank you to sapphictomaz for reviewing these first two chapters for me and helping me find some confidence in this fic, as always. they have some scrumptious t100/murphamy fics that you are kind of morally obligated to check out.


	3. assorted slops and the stupid shitty hill

His return to school on Monday found Bellamy following his sister around yet again, holding a tray of assorted slops and waiting to see which of her social circles she’d drag him along to sit with this time.

Often it was with their mutual friends Atom, Miller, and Fox, the first usually eating slowly and despondently in a way that creeped Bellamy out, and cracking the occasional lazy smile at something Octavia and Fox were chattering about. He thought of Atom much in the same way as he thought of his dead grandparents when he was on the toilet. He might have been watching, might have been listening, but you'd never be able to tell.

Miller was actually pretty great, and Bellamy enjoyed their increasingly frequent conversations about the most recent assorted sportsball game even if they both knew it was for lack of anything else in common.

The three of them used to play Garage Band in Atom’s basement back in middle school, but now that they were older Bellamy had gotten too busy to ever really ‘hang out,' Miller was often out on the town with the boyfriend of the week, and Octavia had forgotten to be flirting with Atom, having moved onto Lincoln, which evidently snuffed out Atom’s desire to come around to the Blakes’.

Lincoln’s was another cafeteria table they frequented, where the upperclassman sat with fellow seniors Anya and Tristan, and Anya’s younger friend Lexa. Bellamy didn’t care for any of them, but tolerated Lincoln for his sister’s sake. He was exceptionally kind in a subdued kind of way, and even surprised Bellamy with a sense of humor on occasion. Bellamy didn’t know what his energetic and opinionated sister saw in him otherwise, and intended to keep his eyes perpetually narrowed so that Lincoln would never forget he was under diligent surveillance.

Tristan was simply the worst person he had ever met, and Anya was rather horrible too, but made Bellamy snort every once in a while with her cruel and specific comments about passersby’s outfits, at least. Except when they were directed at him and his jeans. (What was _wrong_ with his jeans?)

He’d never paid much attention to Lexa, the junior who sat close to Anya’s side and had never quite broken out of her shell after transferring to Franco in the spring semester of last year. She ate quickly and methodically, and then studiously did her homework in silence until the bell rang. Sometimes Lexa took a moment to slow down and stared in the direction of the loudest table in the room, watching them with sober interest. Bellamy wasn’t sure whether she was fascinated by them or hated them, like Bellamy did.

At the loud table in the center of the room sat what 90s movies might consider the popular kids— generously leaving out the bit about the respective student body’s gnawing, bitter envy— eating complicated meals from home and each passing the latest iPhone across the table to show one another their loving parents’ embarrassing Facebook posts or pictures of all the shiny things they’d gotten for their birthdays— or Bellamy assumed, at least.

There was Clarke Griffin, the _princess._ Entitled, bossy, and forever Bellamy’s rival for valedictorian without even knowing it. Octavia promised she was just as bad on the track team, always correcting everyone’s stretches and standing dutifully next to her mother during the coach’s speeches as if she’d been elected captain of the team. She _hadn’t._

Raven Reyes, who drove a new purring, sparkling vehicle every month, it seemed like, and was maybe the biggest bitch he’d ever met. Not that he’d really spoken to her all that much, but Bellamy just had a sense for these things. Plus, she always seemed to want to knock him down a peg during class debates, and did so consistently and without mercy.

Finn Collins, the generic pretty boy with the cool demeanor who must have had a Snapchat streak with the entire female student population of Franco High, and probably for this reason, never took his nose out of his phone unless it was to begrudgingly acknowledge his ex-girlfriend, Raven, or to fall over himself (coolly) to impress his ultimate potential conquest in Princess Griffin.

Wells Jaha, the principal’s son. Just as bossy and stuck-up as the rest of them, but with a nasty penchant for thinking he was the smartest person in the room and that everyone wanted to hear his uppity-ass opinions, having never been proved wrong. Perhaps if Bellamy moved beyond grumbling into actually voicing his hateful thoughts, but he didn’t have the time or energy to waste on _Wells Jaha,_ whose GPA was always right on the heels of Bellamy’s, but never better.

To their collective left sat the stoners if only because of the oddity that was Monty Green, who bridged the gap between the smart, popular kids and characters like Jasper Jordan, who had once showed up to lab well-baked, spilled ethanol on a lab bench, gone to wipe it up with a tissue which he had unknowingly passed over the bunsen burner, and then set the entire bench on fire. One of many occasions of him taking 'lighting up' to new and miraculous levels of stupid— even if Bellamy actually thought him kind of entertaining, in the way that one finds whoopee cushions funny— briefly, unwillingly, and with a vague sense of being disappointed in oneself.

Harper and Monroe were actually alright, but Bellamy had a sneaking suspicion that Harper was only there for Jasper, and Monroe was only there for Harper. And the weed. Unrequited romances aside, they were definitely both there for the weed.

Then— at the end of the long table with about ten empty seats between himself and the others, sitting in an unpleasantly bright square of light from the window— there was Murphy.

“We should remind him try-outs are today,” Octavia said, as her eyes followed his wandering gaze. She let go of one side of her tray for a moment to viciously elbow a boy who had knocked into her shoulder while passing by, her thoughtful expression never faltering as Bellamy became suddenly aware of the two of them standing in the flow of students leaving the lunch line, staring down John Murphy like he was prey.

He was sitting all alone, resting a cheek on his knuckles and poking at his slab of square pizza with a spork, looking as if he were thinking deeply about something. Probably _human sacrifice_ and _eating kittens_ and— and being _mean._

“Sometimes this guy Mbege sits with him, but I think he usually leaves during lunch to hang out with Dax’s crew,” Octavia said quietly, chewing her lip. “Sucks that Murphy’s by himself.”

“No way, O.” Bellamy shook his head. “Let’s just go sit with Atom or Lincoln, alright?”

“You don’t even have to talk to him you big baby, just let me sit with him for a minute. I want to at least remind him about try-outs, where you’re going to have to talk to him anyway, remember?”

“Sure, unless he tells me to go to hell for not saving him from a boo-boo,” Bellamy grumbled, but ultimately followed in her wake as Octavia made her way resolutely toward the nearly-empty half of the table, walking quickly to match her stride despite his vehement reluctance to what was happening, as per usual.

“He won’t,” Octavia promised as she juked perpendicular-flowing passersby with ease. “He lives with the Jahas. I figure that'd make anyone an atheist.”

“Not comforting,” Bellamy griped. "He'll fear no eternal repercussions for putting my head on a stick."

"No one wants your big head on a stick," Octavia quipped, and Bellamy made a self-pitying noise. She at least had the decency to shoot an apologetic look over her shoulder. "Sorry, you're easy to bully when you get whiny."

Bellamy gave an indignant frown and slid hesitantly onto a circular seat as Octavia dropped down with gusto, startling Murphy, whose face had gone pale and tight as if expecting something unpleasant to happen.

“Hey, Flash,” she greeted, and Murphy’s face smoothed out again into its seemingly standard state of disinterested bitchiness, which came as a bizarre relief to Bellamy.

“Octavia,” he drawled in greeting, lifting up his pizza and ripping a chunk away so he wouldn't have to make conversation. Beginner’s mistake, Bellamy thought, as Octavia barreled on.

“Try-outs this afternoon,” she reminded him with surprising sternness. “I won’t be there since I’ve got karate—" She made a chopping motion in the air that Murphy couldn't see, but flinched at nonetheless, feeling the _whoosh_ of her ridiculous hand flying past his face. "So I’m going to the secondary tryouts, but don’t make me find out from someone else that you bailed, loser."

Murphy shrugged, his tongue poking out to search for the sauce on the corner of his lips. “I guess.”

“Try to be a little more sure about it, I’ve got good money running on you and my brother making enemies out of at least half the team before the meet’s over.”

At this Murphy took pause, and Bellamy watched the pizza he held in midair slowly wilt, a cubed pepperoni sliding off and plinking onto the styrofoam tray. It was stabbed full of fork holes and smeared with tomato sauce, looking like a murder victim.

“Blake’s your brother?” he asked, brows knitting together before his lips turned up in a smirk. “Guess the Stupid Disease he's so clearly afflicted with isn't genetic."

Bellamy scoffed as he tugged his milk carton open and Murphy turned on him quickly, forgetting his pizza entirely and dropping it on its face with an unappealing, cheesy smack.

“It’s rude not to announce yourself,” he scolded as he crossed his arms tightly, and Bellamy froze up, feeling properly guilty now for sneaking around the blind kid. “I heard you sit down, thought I was having a paranormal encounter.”  


“Sorry,” Bellamy answered lamely, cheeks warm. “Not a ghost.”

“No kidding,” Murphy replied, turning back to his food, ripping the foil lid off of a cup of peaches. “A ghost would bring an ominous chill instead of an ominous cloud of Phoenix Axe body spray.”

For a long moment Bellamy couldn’t decide whether he was pissed off or amused, during which time Murphy’s face shifted through an array of uncontrolled little expressions, most frequently smugness followed by discomfort.

Bellamy remembered to respond, then, feeling a sudden urgency to stop Murphy’s weird, flickering face. “And how would you know?”

“I make it a point to know my enemies,” he answered quickly, and Bellamy’s lip twitched as he returned to his lunch tray with great purpose and intent to actually begin eating, but still only traced the edge of it with the curve of his spoon, wanting to be ready if Murphy acknowledged him again. 

“Boys, please,” Octavia reprimanded, picking the pepperonis off of her pizza and stacking them into an underwhelming meat pile. “Murphy, will you please tell my brother here that you don’t hate him, and will gladly tolerate him as your shitty guide for the season?”

Murphy sighed, thumbed his nose, and then folded his arm over the table before he apparently found it in himself to answer. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess."

“Which of you being the beggar?”

Murphy flicked his hand up from the table in lieu of another shrug. “Either or. We’re both in a bit of a pickle I take it, so we might as well be useful to one another." He tilted his head pointedly toward Bellamy. "Braincells or not.”

Despite a surprisingly reasonable and almost kind sentiment from Murphy, Bellamy scoffed at the same time as Octavia giggled.

_“What?”_ snapped Murphy.

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a pickle idiom kind of guy. Guess you really are a Jaha.”

“Am _not!”_ Murphy protested, yanking his upside-down pizza slice from his tray and just barely stopping himself from devouring it in order to keep berating them. “Do the Wonder Twins intend to fuck off anytime soon so I can eat my shitty lunch in peace?”

“Happy to. See you at try-outs,” Bellamy muttered, rising, and held back a sob as Octavia grabbed him by the forearm and yanked him back down into the seat. Bellamy searched the cafeteria for exits. Were the windows locked? Surely not, that would be a fire hazard, right? He was tall enough to hurdle the sills. Would they stop him if he ran through the kitchen?

“I think we could use a change in scenery. Mind if we stay?” Octavia asked sweetly. Murphy looked surprised for a moment, his irritable expression softening, ever so slightly.

“Some scenery,” he quipped, and then crammed the rest of his pizza slice into his mouth.

Bellamy shook his head and made to eat in silence as Octavia peeked over and smiled at him from behind a wall of dark hair, like there was any need to hide her grin from Murphy. He wasn’t sure what she was so goddamn thrilled about, anyway.

Maybe she’d seen the little smile overtaking Murphy’s scowl that Bellamy had seen, while glaring at that spot of sauce on the edge of his lips again.

_Honestly._ Murphy was so gross.

Murphy had dealt with a lot of bullshit in his young life. Bullshit great, and bullshit small, and after years of practice he’d gotten quite good at letting it all wash over him. Usually. Nobody's perfect.

“This is a joke, right?”

Murphy leaned forward where he sat to grab the toe of his sneaker, pulling slow on his spine. Tendrils of grass itched at his calves, rustling in an easy breeze, and he had a feeling today was perfect weather to run in. So he focused on that.

“No, really, I’m actually asking. We have a decent team here, and now we’re letting walking participation trophies tag along to make us look bad at county? Does Coach know about this?”

Murphy switched legs, sliding a hand down his shin until he could wrap it around the sole of his other shoe. He kept his mind on the strain along his back, the underside of his thigh and his knee.

“Why don’t you just focus on _you_ making the team this season, Ontari. Try-outs haven’t even started yet,” came another voice from a ways away, familiar but not immediately recognizable to Murphy.

“You’re funny, Griffin, but I think I’ll manage. Why don’t you get mommy dearest out here and remind her that this isn’t the damn Special Olympics,” Ontari snapped. Then her voice became slightly distant as if she’d begun walking away, muttering, “He’s gonna slow us all down," and laughed. "Great. Just great.”

A new voice joined the fray, then; the one Murphy’d been waiting on, despite himself. “No worries, we’ll try to stay out of your way. Won’t we, Murphy?”

Murphy’s lips curled into a grin. “'Course, Blake. Wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Never,” Bellamy agreed, voice right next to Murphy, high overhead. Murphy felt unreasonably tickled by it, a little rose of joy blooming in his chest. It just felt pretty good to stick it to Colderbrook, is all.

There was an almost silence, in which Bellamy bent and stretched, gym clothes rustling and breath huffing out quiet at Murphy’s side, and Murphy sat back on his hands, enjoying the breeze and listening to the quiet, gossiping chatter of other new and returning runners.

“Be sure you don’t,” Ontari said at last, voice tight with frustration. “This is _actually_ important to some of us.”

“Ma’am yes ma’am,” Murphy saluted before Bellamy could beat him to the punch, who snorted as Ontari’s squeaky shoes stomped away.

Eventually, Bellamy collapsed in the grass beside Murphy, sighing long and loud. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. Switched my gym bag with O’s by mistake and had to track her down before she left. Her running shorts wouldn’t be very flattering on me, believe it or not.”

“I don’t need you coming to my rescue, you know,” said Murphy, trying not to think about Bellamy in short shorts. “I can take care of myself just fine.”

For another quiet moment Murphy thought Bellamy might pitch a fit at that, wanting to be the knight on a white horse and taking Murphy’s rejection as a personal insult to his precious ego and righteous character.

“No doubt about it,” he said at last, amusement in his tone, and Murphy’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat.

He opened his mouth to speak, to say something companionable or good-natured for once, when Bellamy suddenly got up with a huff and strode away. Slightly bewildered and wondering what he’d done wrong this time, Murphy strained to listen, to single out his voice, but only heard more of the mind-numbingly empty conversations of the other students scattered about.

“Then prove it, Mr. Blake,” a woman’s voice snapped suddenly, louder over the drone and off near the bleachers, before a whistle was blown from the same direction. Coach. “Okay everybody, three miles through the nature trail and back around to the other end of the field. You have to pass me to get your finishing time.”

“Sorry,” Bellamy grumbled as he jogged back up, bumping Murphy’s right side in invitation. “You ready?”

“Whatever,” said Murphy, and took his broad shoulder under a sweaty palm that he wished desperately to have wiped on his shorts before placing it there. His fingers clamped tightly onto Bellamy as Coach counted down, 3… 2… 1.

As soon as the other runners began pounding over the soccer field Murphy felt both himself and Bellamy tip forward to barrel ahead at their fastest, legs pumping hard over even ground and empty space. The urge to break out and take the lead was undiscussed but clearly agreed between them in a way Murphy had a sense many things were and would keep being if today worked out in their favor, loathe as he was to admit that he and Bellamy Blake had anything in common.  _Shudder._

Whether today would work out in their favor was another million dollar question, as Murphy felt the grass change into leaf litter and the sun’s heat fade under the shelter of a canopy, and felt anxiety creeping in as he stumbled past his first wiry twig, and then tripped over a large rock rolling twice under his shoe, and then skidded forward on a slick patch of mud.

The problem wasn’t that they were falling behind. Despite all the flailing about, they kept up a decent speed. The stampede of other runners crunching over the forest floor seemed to still come from behind, and Murphy felt his heart pound like they were really being chased, and so kept keenly focused to stay ahead with or without the trip-ups.

The problem was that he’d been prepared to deal with Bellamy’s over-description and confusing instructions, but Bellamy was silent as the breeze, moving quietly and steadily over the lay of the land, expecting Murphy to feel for the turns by only the slight movements of Bellamy’s body under his hand.  But Murphy couldn’t very well ask for more directions after the incident at the park, now could he?

“They’re gaining on us,” Bellamy said suddenly, voice snappy and urgent. He’d begun picking up the pace and left Murphy lagging nervously behind, arm outstretched to keep Bellamy’s fleeing shoulder in his grasp.

“Alright,” Murphy conceded without much actual confidence, kicking it up a notch and bringing himself back to Bellamy’s side. They moved from a jog into a run, leaving Murphy with even less time to register inconvenient objects of nature under his feet. He gripped Bellamy tightly, wincing in embarrassment as he heard Bellamy’s questioning grunt at the blunt nails digging into his shoulder. He just needed to keep up, and then once they’d secured the lead again they could slow down, and maybe then he could tell Bellamy to be a little more useful—

Bullshit, Murphy thought as he hooked his shin on a fallen branch and lurched forward, flinging his hand out from Bellamy’s shoulder to try and catch himself before he ate dirt. He dealt with so much bullshit.

“Crap,” Bellamy said helpfully, stumbling after him as Murphy hit the ground and slipped off a rounded ridge, sliding down a muddy, eroding hill. He scrabbled against the fallen leaves for something to hold onto, blocking a startled call of Bellamy’s name behind tightened lips. His foot shot out to stop him rolling down more of the smooth incline, and he gasped as his sneaker splashed through a few inches of water and then stuck with a slurping noise to the bed of the stream.

Murphy struggled away from the creek like a fly caught in a glue trap, confused and sticky with the slime of wet earth, making no progress at all uphill. He stopped fighting and swallowed tightly, wrapping a hand around his aching shin and opening his mouth to call for Bellamy, then closing it again as a hand wrapped around his arm and began pulling him back to the path.

“Jesus Christ,” Murphy breathed, relieved and furious and humiliated all at once, ignoring Bellamy’s irritated yet stuttering apologies as they both scrambled a few feet up the stupid shitty hill and then slid awkwardly down again. “Good going, Blake. You _actually_ ran us into a ravine.

“Think you can insult me later?” Bellamy grunted, yanking Murphy’s arm up as he climbed, before he lost his traction and Murphy’s weight pulled them back down to the creek again. “I’m trying to get us back there up before they…“

The rest of the group’s footfall passed by in a measly couple of seconds, laughter that sounded awfully like Ontari Colderbrook's leading the mob.

Murphy ripped his arm away and flopped back against the hill, leaving the heels of his ruined sneakers in the water. “This is all your fault.”

“Oh, screw you, Murphy. It’s not like you were much help.”  


“That’s the point, you gargantuan moron. You’re _my_ guide.”

“I’m not _your_ anything,” Bellamy retorted sharply.

“Pain in my ass.”

“Thorn in my side.”

“Dick in your mouth.”

“Fuck you.”

Murphy’s shoes squelched as he pulled his knees to his chest, taking a deep breath and planning to embarrass himself by trying to climb up on his own again, when the same kind voice from the soccer field called down, “Need some help?”

“No thanks, Princess,” they called at once, and Murphy reached out to push at Bellamy in retaliation, skimming his arm and getting flattened by Bellamy’s returned shove in the process.

“Ok- _ay,”_ Clarke chimed, teasing. “Guess we’ll just be going then. Good luck!”

Murphy sighed, flinging a mud-spattered arm over his eyes. “Wait,” he acquiesced, to a ridiculous little sound of protest from Bellamy as if they were supposed to be down here in solidarity. “Blake’s useless. I could use a hand up.”

Bellamy scoffed, but not long after there was a hand wrapped around Murphy’s wrist, tugging him up and out. He couldn’t be made to regret accepting help from Clarke as he sat safely on the dirt path and accepted a much-needed water bottle, listening to Bellamy vehemently deny increasingly frustrated offers of assistance.

“If not me, then at least let Lexa help you,” Clarke said, and Bellamy was quiet for a moment before the mad scrabbling began again.

“Maybe we should leave him,” said another girl’s voice, who Murphy assumed must have been Lexa. “We’re already going to have to run at the secondary try-outs because of this. He’ll get up here eventually.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Clarke sighed, as Bellamy grunted and made another unproductive splash in the stream. “He looks so pitiful.”

“Men,” Lexa grumbled.

“Come on, Blake,” called Murphy, climbing to his feet as Clarke took her water bottle back and capped it up again, seemingly preparing to leave Bellamy after all. “I know your pride’s hurting but I’m sure you’re caked, man, and you’re tired, and it’s hot. At this rate you’ll dry up and become a nice piece of pottery.”

Clarke giggled.

“Just go!” shouted Bellamy, unusually belligerent. “I don’t need anyone’s help! Especially not from either of _you!”_

Turning on the path and considering his options as well as how the hell he’d ended up in this position, Murphy gave the long-suffering sigh of a long-suffering individual, and then snapped his fingers and gestured for Clarke and Lexa to continue the race, pointless as it was now. “Go on,” he mumbled. “I’ll deal with Muk.”

“If you’re sure,” Clarke said kindly, and not for the first time that day he felt a little sorry for hating her.

“Thanks,” he ground out as the girls were leaving, and their sneakers momentarily paused their scraping away on the gritty path. “For stopping.”

“If it means anything, we’re rooting for you. Someone’s got to beat Ontari,” Lexa explained.

Murphy grinned, raising an eyebrow as Bellamy cussed with magnificent volume from the mini-ravine. “And you think that’s us?”

“I think it’d be funniest if it were,” she said, and Murphy found he was still grinning long after they'd gone.

Eventually, after it sounded like the fight had gone out of him, Murphy lowered himself to his stomach on the ridge and extended an arm down to Bellamy. He was panting heavily at the bottom of the slope, otherwise carefully quiet as he regarded Murphy's offer like a trapped animal.

“They’re gone,” Murphy promised. “Take my hand.”

“I don’t need you,” said Bellamy, as his palm pressed tightly to Murphy's. "It's just faster this way."

“Whatever you say, boss,” Murphy replied, and pulled with all the strength he had.

When they were both kneeling at the top of the hill at last, breathing hard together, their knees were touching at a single point. Dirty grit and caked skin scraped between them, and Murphy, strangely, was not so loathe to share something new with Bellamy Blake the Horrible, the Relentless, the Stubborn.

They made it back to the field with a record time of an hour and fifteen minutes.

“I don’t even want to know,” Coach Griffin said as they stumbled out of the trees, squelching, smeared, and smelling. All the others had gone home, and Murphy could feel from the drop in temperature that the sun had begun to set. “I expect to see you both at the secondary tryouts on Friday. Try to actually finish with the other runners this time, or I won’t be able to let you onto the team. Understood?”

“Clear as a whistle,” Murphy agreed, as Bellamy grumbled indistinctly.

Coach zipped up a bag and then, just before making her way to the parking lot, added, “And boys? Get each other home in one piece. Good grief.”

They gathered their things and walked in silence to the lot, the evening air cool on wet, muddy skin. Bellamy's offer to sacrifice his car's upholstery in order to take Murphy home became yet another unspoken thing between them.

“That went well,” Murphy quipped, and laughed out loud as Bellamy punched him hard on the arm.

"Shut up, Murphy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changing the tentative update day to sundays rather than mondays because why was i posting on mondays in the first place. idiot
> 
> but HELLO AGAIN! i hope you enjoyed this chapter. let me know what you thought i'm always desperate for feedback. the little comment gremlin i am
> 
> thanks so much for reading and leaving kudos <3 come chat with me on twitter @slugcities where i am progressively making myself more and more an enemy of the state


	4. dropped lemons and the frankly invasive state of everyone's hands

It never took long to spot John Murphy in a crowd.

He wore ratty old chucks and shredded jeans, holes in the knees stretched far beyond fashionably edgy to the point that the loose fabric was flapping in the wind, and some faded logo tee. It was clear he preferred functionality and comfort over fashion, because of course he did.

At present, he was knocking other students out of his path like a sweeper on an Olympic curling team, demanding about a ten foot radius of space around him at all times. Bellamy grinned. He was a force to be reckoned with, that was for damn sure.

They’d agreed to have a practice run before secondary try-outs, and Bellamy would rather knock it out on Tuesday or Thursday when he was off of work instead of cramming it in before a shift. There was something extra soul-crushing about serving up gas station chili cheese fries in sweaty gym clothes, the combination of which would not be inspiring the next Yankee Candle by any means.

Bellamy wove through the crowd squeezing out of the school’s front doors to meet him, noticing as he came closer that Murphy’s book bag had been left open and had some kind of peg board tilting out of it, with triangles of yarn and wire constructed on the board turning corners at selected pegs. 

As Bellamy so kindly reached out and zipped Murphy’s bag closed, naturally, a sharp elbow flew out and stabbed Bellamy in the gut. 

_“Oof,”_ he wheezed, clutching at the new hole in his stomach. _“Jesus,_ Murphy.”

At the sound of his voice, Murphy’s horrible little arm straightened out so he could place a flat palm on Bellamy’s stomach in alarm, steadying them both. “Damn it, Blake,” he cursed, turning himself around and ripping his hand away again. He held his arm to his chest in a way that could have been either apologetic or disgusted, and knowing Murphy, was probably the latter. “How many times do we have to go over this?”

“Why don’t _you_ stop attacking people unprovoked?”

“Your existence provokes me.”

“Ha ha,” Bellamy sneered, pocketing his hands and walking alongside Murphy into the parking lot as he whacked everyone out of their path by the ankles, feeling childishly pleased to be allowed inside the danger zone even if he was feeling the toll in his bruised intestine. “Run this afternoon?” he asked.

“I’m busy,” answered Murphy, angling himself toward the bus stop once they hit the sidewalk.

“What’s so important?” argued Bellamy, chasing after him as Murphy sped up, annoyed. “We need to be ready for secondaries.”

Murphy’s cane _ting_ ’ed on the bottom of the metal bus shelter, and he traced the wall of it until he found the bench and took a seat, splaying out his legs until there was hardly any room left. “Someone’s clingy,” he muttered at last. “We’ll run tomorrow.”

Bellamy breathed in deeply through his nose, refraining from grumbling any choice words about Murphy making all the decisions, and shoved in beside him. As he’d expected, Murphy shrunk and scooted to the edge of the bench the moment their thighs touched.

They were quiet for a moment, like Murphy was deciding on his next mode of attack. At last, he simply sighed. “Arrival time for Union?”

“4:15,” Bellamy answered, reading off of the laminated schedule plastered on the inside of the shelter. “You’re going to Union Plaza? What for?”

“Special blindness vitamins.”

“Really?”

“No, you idiot. I’m getting groceries.”

“Oh.” Bellamy scuffed the heel of his sneaker against some gum flattened on the sidewalk for a few minutes, making it his mission to peel the dirty orange circle from the concrete, and wondering why he wouldn’t just leave. “Um, how was trigonometry?” he asked, marginally afraid of how Murphy would respond to an effort at small talk.

Murphy gave a wry little smile. “Productive, useful, and rewarding, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Bellamy replied, amused and waiting for Murphy to return a question about his day, or continue their conversation, or entertain Bellamy, somehow.

But he only sat silently, facing forward as the breeze danced over him, tousling his hair and his clothes. His jean holes flapped ferociously, and Bellamy wondered if anyone had ever made fun of _his_ pants. Probably not.

He guessed he could go home. He could work on the stupid English project he didn’t really want to work on, or get chewed out by his mom, _again,_ or listen to Octavia’s boy problems…

A bus squealed to a stop in front of the shelter, and Murphy stretched luxuriously as he stood, groaning and lifting his arms overhead as if he’d been sitting for hours. When he was done, he tapped Bellamy’s ankle with his cane. “Come on then.”

Bellamy’s brain stuttered, searching for details of some prior, monumental conversation he’d evidently missed. “What?”

“You can push the cart,” Murphy said. Then he stepped onto the bus, paid the driver, and disappeared out of sight. After a moment’s hesitation, Bellamy leapt up and and scrambled in after him, dropping dumbly down into one of the hideous felt seats along the bus’ wall at Murphy’s side.

“Okay,” he murmured, disbelieving as the bus rumbled away from the shelter. “Grocery shopping.”

“Grocery shopping,” Murphy agreed, gripping his cane as he stared unseeing out of the window, looking like he was in on a secret that no one else knew.

“Let’s just get the canned ones. It’s cheaper.”

“Why don’t you let _me_ decide what kind of blueberries _I_ prefer?” Murphy nagged, shoving another plastic punnet at Bellamy’s chest. “Check these.”

Bellamy grumblingly obliged. “Just trying to be practical here. They’re fine,” he added, settling them into the cart between the sugar and the cornstarch.

“I pity the fool that’s fed by you,” said Murphy, and then pointed imperiously at the cabbages on the far wall. “Take me to the lemons, Giles.”

“Stop calling me servant names.” Frowning, Bellamy began navigating the shopping cart to the wooden bin of lemons, bumping into a shelf of pistachios in tiny, overpriced bags as he tried to squeeze past another family while also reaching back to push Murphy behind him and out of their way.

“Watch out,” Murphy said unhelpfully, shoving Bellamy’s arm away from him as he patted his way to the lemons and began holding them up for Bellamy’s approval. Bellamy sighed, righting himself and the crooked cart as the family moved along without mowing an ungrateful Murphy down.

“Sure. Fine. Yes," Bellamy answered of each of the proffered lemons. "Not that one."

“Feels fine," argued Murphy.

“Just get another one, trust me.”

“Trust _you?_ And what would you know about it, Chef Ramsay?”

“Well, for starters it’s a lime.”

Murphy huffed and dug around for another. 

“How do you normally do this, anyway?” Bellamy asked, as Murphy went to carelessly place the last lemon in the cart and dropped it just short of the basket’s edge, and Bellamy’s hand shot out quickly to catch it. He rolled his eyes as Murphy shoved past the cart and began sweeping along again, oblivious.

“If I can’t drag Wells along then I have to call ahead and get someone who works here to do my evil bidding,” he answered. “Spices?”

“Aisle seven. Thirty feet.” Bellamy hunched over the cart, eyeing the few items they’d gathered in so much time and imagining Murphy trying to politely delegate his needs to anyone else, or else dropped lemons in the thousands. “Sounds like a lot more human interaction than befits you.”

Murphy’s expression, then, did that strange little thing it sometimes did. He paused and his eyelids fluttered, and looking at him it was as if his world had slowed for a moment. Bellamy was starting to understand it as pleasure, often at being understood.

“It’s true,” he said, with that same unusual softness to his tone. The rattling wheels of the shopping cart rolling over tile almost drowned him out, quiet as he spoke it. “But for all of your many, many, _many_ faults—“

“I get it.”

“—You make a much better Alfred than a stranger.”

Bellamy fell into step behind him again as Murphy shook his head and resumed his march toward the spices, and a grin spread across Bellamy’s lips. In turn, Murphy’s old chucks began stomping quicker along as if he had a sixth sense for when he was about to be teased. “I thought I was a shitty guide that you barely tolerated. Aisle on your left.”

“You caught one lemon,” Murphy said, turning into the aisle. “Don’t get a big head, Blake.”

“And if I’d caught a second lemon?” Bellamy asked, kicking the cart up to speed and pitching forward to ride it past him. “Spices on your right, five feet.”

“Well then you’d be a shoo-in for a medal,” Murphy replied, which sounded dangerously in the territory of friendly, and his expression twisted as if he realized as much. “Now hand me the cinnamon already.”

Bellamy shook his head as he dragged the cart to a stop. “Sure thing, your Highness,” he answered, smiling despite himself.

Brat.

They’d taken the bus back to school and Bellamy had begrudgingly offered Murphy a ride home, which was about as silent as it had been the last two times, seeing as Murphy tended to turn the radio on before the car was even out of park.

He made no effort to chat because he didn’t want to, didn’t need to. Sometimes it seemed like he talked all the time, to everyone, about everything. Just to get what he needed or prove that he was present, to make it through the day. Sometimes he wanted to just _exist_ , if to be heard without speaking was too much to ask. 

Though, when a hand reached out and took Murphy’s to gently guide his index finger to a button on the dash, on which 106.5 ‘The Edge’ had been programmed as a favorite station so Murphy wouldn’t have to ask Bellamy to find it with the dial, he had whispered his thanks no matter how much it _irked_ him to do so.

Parked in front of the Jaha’s townhouse at last, Bellamy sat tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, probably watching Murphy fumble to collect his grocery bags in the backseat. He’d turned something over on accident and picked up an empty bag, and groping the empty carseat and floorboard was not turning up a runaway sack of flour nor a stray bottle of vinegar. With a sigh, Murphy began punching Bellamy’s headrest to demand help.

“Coming, coming,” he muttered, shoving Murphy out of the way to put everything he’d spilled back in its bag and to snatch the others from Murphy’s free hand.

“Well, I’d like to keep it,” he argued, and Bellamy ignored him, slamming the car door closed and scuffing away toward the house. “Come on in, then,” Murphy invited, bewildered, as Bellamy opened the front door and made his way into the house. “Mi casa es su casa.”

Bellamy then began opening the fridge and pantry, putting the groceries away as Murphy stood, struck dumb, in his own kitchen. “I appreciate the help, Blake, but I’m pretty sure I can navigate my own refrigerator.”

“I’ll sleep better tonight knowing the organic free range Omega-3 eggs we slaved away to find don’t end up rotting in the microwave.”

“Very funny. I’ll have you know I’m not afraid to show you where you can put your damn eggs,” said Murphy, lips twitching into a grin as Bellamy continued bustling around like he owned the place.

“They really should have child locks on these cabinets, Murphy. What if you go for a Sprite and drink the Windex?”

Murphy felt a surprised laugh bubbling up, but just as he opened his mouth to respond, Wells’ voice butted in. “He’s not helpless, you know.”

The kitchen fell suddenly silent as Bellamy paused, and he and Wells apparently began having some kind of cowboy standoff that Murphy wasn’t quite privy to.

“Did you invite him in, Murphy?” Wells demanded.

“Well, no, but—“

“Then I think you should go,” he suggested to Bellamy, his kind voice unusually cold.

_Honestly, Wells,_ Murphy thought. _It was_ just _a radio._

“Okay,” said Bellamy, meek and awkward like Murphy had never heard him, closing the refrigerator and making his way around the kitchen island. “Sorry to, uh, intrude.”

“Yeah,” agreed Wells. “And you know what, Bellamy? Don’t let me catch you talking to him like that again.”

“Wells, cut it out,” Murphy pleaded, on the verge of an awkward and unfamiliar new feeling that he had begun experiencing since meeting Bellamy; one that he was beginning to recognize as humiliation. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You don’t have to put up with this crap. Not from anyone, and especially not from jackasses like him.”

“He wasn’t—“ Murphy stuttered, unpracticed, always the provocateur and never the mediator. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

“Look, I’m going,” Bellamy interjected, opening the front door like he couldn’t get out fast enough. “Sorry, Murphy. I shouldn’t have come in.”

“No," continued Wells, snapping after him like he wouldn't be satisfied until Bellamy was out of the city limits. "No, what you _shouldn’t_ have done is spoken to him like he’s _—_ ”

**_“BOYS!”_ ** ****

Murphy dropped his face into his hands. “Fantastic.”

Ignoring the 13,000 pound African bush elephant in the room like he always did, Jaha stepped into the threshold from the back patio and entered the kitchen, grill smoke wafting in behind him. “All my favorite youngsters in one place, what a nice surprise!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I have the greatest idea.”

“Jaha, please—” Murphy begged, just as Wells began protesting too.

“Come on, Dad, don’t—"

“Bellamy, son, you _must_ stay for dinner!” Jaha cried, slapping a hand on the island countertop in firm decision.

Bellamy’s voice sounded withered and unusually small. “I must?”

“You _must.”_

“I really ought to be getting home,” Bellamy explained, and Murphy was rooting for him, really, but they were already doomed. “My mom wanted me to make dinner.”

“Nonsense! We’re having hotdog salad, and we _always_ make too much. You can take home the leftovers.”

“But—“

“It’ll be done in twenty, you can entertain yourselves until then,” he ordered, tinkering with something that Murphy had just noticed hissing to a boil on the stove. There was a disconcerting plop. “And if you try to run off, Mr. Blake, I’ll sense it,” he added, which Murphy felt was vaguely threatening. 

They all stood still a moment, unsure of how to proceed, until Jaha swatted the counter with his spatula and shouted “Git!” in an unprecedented moment of country grandmother.

“Okay, Jesus,” said Murphy, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m going to my room.” He grimaced in what he hoped was the general direction of Bellamy. “Come with me if you want to live.”

_“Terminator!”_ Jaha shouted again from the pantry, forever thinking Murphy’s references were trivia questions with no prizes.

Cringing, Murphy found the stairs and made his way to the top, sliding his palm along the molding that split the wallpaper until he hit his doorframe, fingers tracing a line of what he knew were old, embossed Pac-Man stickers to quickly lead his hand to the doorknob.

The door clicked open and Murphy walked until his knees hit the bed, collapsing against his pillows as Bellamy and Wells’ stomping footsteps disappeared at the top of the stairs too.

“I’m doing homework. Please don’t be loud,” said Wells, simultaneously polite and bossy like always.

“Please take care of the stick up your ass before dinner.”

“We’ll see,” he replied, slamming his bedroom door closed across the hall. Although ‘slamming’ was an overstatement for Wells. More like ‘shut without turning the doorknob first.’ Which was actually incredibly rude, coming from him.

Bellamy was silent, and it didn’t sound like he’d moved from the hallway. “There’s no usher today, you’ll have to seat yourself,” Murphy said, and waited for Bellamy to snort or scoff. He did no such thing, entering gingerly as if Murphy’s bedroom were a sacred space. 

He flicked the switch by the door on— the one that did nothing for Murphy.  “Didn’t take you for a minimalist,” he appraised, tinkering with things at Murphy’s desk, across from the bed. “Bed, desk, chair…”

“Hey, come on. I’ve got a closet, too. And a little table,” Murphy added, reaching out to pat the drawer at his bedside. “Alarm clock.”

“Very cool,” Bellamy complimented, a smile in his voice. 

Murphy liked his voice. He hadn’t realized how much until just then. It was deep and rough, but kind. Warm. He spoke shortly and with purpose; no needless chatter. Some of his words started or ended in a whisper, as if it was taking effort to say them at all. It gave a rise-and-fall quality to his cadence, a kind of flowing melody. 

Against all the white noise, Bellamy Blake’s voice was a little like music.

“Woah,” he said, bringing Murphy back to the world. “Nice record player.”

Murphy pulled his knees to his chest. “Pioneer PL-518.”

“No idea what that means,” said Bellamy, rifling through the crate of records beside the turntable.

“It means it’s good,” Murphy explained, not one to brag but… come on. Pioneer PL-518.

“Expensive?”

“I’d grab it in a fire.”

“I think I’d go for the records,” Bellamy breathed, flipping through the vinyls in what felt, rightfully so, like respectful silence. Murphy could do nothing but lie back and listen, and try not to look too ridiculously proud, too ridiculously pleased.

“The Black Keys,” Bellamy mentioned, sounding excited like a child and making Murphy’s feigned cool even harder to maintain. He wanted to jump up and show him all the best ones, wanted to blabber on and on about the rare ones, the special edition ones, the best ones.

“‘Thickfreakness?’” Murphy asked, remembering the stripped-down, garage-rock blues album he was so often wearing out on the turntable.

“Mhm,” Bellamy hummed, wonder-filled. “'Everywhere I Go.’”

A smile split Murphy’s face. That was his favorite, too.

“Where did you _get_ all these?”

His smile fell; his heart clenched. “My dad."

Bellamy slowed in his flipping through the records and eventually stopped altogether, and the end of the bed creaked under his weight as he joined Murphy. He was quiet, for a moment. Sitting, staring, like they always did. Because eventually, everyone could tell his parents were dead without having to ask. Because Murphy’s life was an unspeakable thing.

“He liked music, then,” Bellamy said at last, which was a little bit stupid and useless, because everyone likes music, but Murphy’s lips still thinned in a flat, not-quite-smile.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Collector. Drove my mom crazy with it all.”

“The noise or the clutter?” Bellamy asked, scraping the crate of records in elaboration without getting up from the bed. Likely with the toe of his sneaker, which he should have taken off at the door but Murphy didn’t want to tell him so for fear he’d seem like he gave a shit about ridiculous, prissy things like the integrity of the Jahas’ carpet, in the clean and quiet house where they were kind enough to keep him.

“The noise, the clutter, the dancing, the singing.” Murphy put on a conspiratorial grin. “She loved it. I know she loved it.”

“Sounds like a loud house,” Bellamy said, in his warm, low voice, a sound that soothed some of the storm in Murphy.

He shrugged and threw up a hand, gesturing loose and flippant at the rest of the house. “You should see Jaha during the Olympics. He’d give the Murphys a run for our money.”

Bellamy stayed quiet; bewildered, maybe.

“He’s really into luge.”

Shaking himself out, Murphy climbed off the bed and crouched by the records, running his fingers over the braille labels to see what Bellamy had seen, maybe to find one he’d like. God knew why.

“I never knew my dad.”

Murphy turned, folding onto his knees and facing Bellamy’s voice, waiting for more. But Bellamy had nothing else to say.

“Must’ve been ugly,” Murphy said, turning back to the records, and grinned as Bellamy barked out an indignant, _loud_ laugh.

“You don’t even know,” he grumbled, joy still clinging to every syllable as he flopped back onto the bed. “I’ve been told I’m a catch.”

“Well, people are known to lie,” replied Murphy, thinking of Bellamy’s arms under his hands, of his scuffed laugh, of the best voice he knew.

He thought of himself. 

He didn’t really _get_ looks. He had a mouth and a nose, eyes and ears, last he checked. Hair on his head and a body with his arms and legs. He had all the parts most people started with. It was disconcerting to think that perhaps there was something wrong with them. That perhaps Bellamy’s parts were better, and that Murphy’s parts looked ridiculous next to his.

“What about me?” he blurted, horrifying himself.

He’d asked only once before. His mother had taken her little finger and traced the long line of his scrunching nose, the twitching curve of his brows, the bow of his trembling smile, as he couldn’t stop giggling long enough to hold it all still. 

_“Handsome boy,” she said._ _“There were never a pair of eyes like yours, baby, I can promise you that.”_

_Murphy touched her face, holding the smooth curve of her jaw. “You’re handsome, too, Mama.”_

_“Am I now?” she laughed. “How’s that?”_

_“‘Cause I say so,”_ _Murphy said matter-of-factly, tracing her pointy nose with a clumsy finger of his own, vaguely sticky with the remnants of jelly._

_“Then it must be true,” she replied. “I think you’d know better than anyone, squirt.”_

“You?” Bellamy repeated as if confused, and sounded like he was sitting up on the bed to see him. Murphy willed the memory away and opened his mouth to make a joke, wave it all off like he’d never even asked, but was cut short by the kitchen broom beating against the floor from below.

_“Hot dog, hot dog, hot dog!”_

Saved by the broom, Murphy snapped his runaway mouth shut and sighed, shoving himself up to a stand and collecting his cane from where it leaned against the doorframe. 

“Does that mean something?” Bellamy asked, creaking off of Murphy’s bed to join him.

“It means you’re about to have a very weird evening. Ready?”

“Do I get a choice?” he muttered, following Murphy to the stairs, who was already starting to feel like he was smiling too much lately.

Whatever Bellamy had imagined ‘hotdog salad’ would be, the thing on his plate was not it.

It jiggled. It _jiggled._

“Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog,” Jaha sang, placing another plate of the stuff on the placemat across from Bellamy, where Murphy pulled out his chair and sat with an impassive face, as if everything happening here was normal. Maybe he didn’t know what it looked like. Bellamy had the urge to warn him somehow.

“Do your bit, John,” Jaha said, as he returned to the kitchen to gather their glasses.

“Can we not, tonight? You’re scaring him,” Murphy protested, gesturing at Bellamy.

“Do your bit!” insisted Jaha.

“Just do your bit,” Wells sighed.

“Grab my boots and a sandwich, let’s start a parade,” Murphy muttered, dropping his elbow onto the table with a clatter and covering his face with his hand.

“Now Wells!”

“Get the coconut drum kit, for Daisy to play,” Wells sort-of sang, devotedly avoiding anyone’s eyes.

“Hot dog, hot dog!” said Jaha, finally taking his seat and looking pleased on a final “Hot diggety dog.” Then it was silent, and Bellamy felt like he’d been allowed to return to Earth for a second.

And for a second only, as Wells Jaha then reached over and grabbed his hand, holding tight as Bellamy attempted to snatch it away. _Jesus,_ was he strong.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Wells hissed out of the corner of his mouth, and Bellamy jumped in surprise as Murphy’s fingers brushed his knuckles, searching. What the fuck was going on?

But then Jaha was bowing his head, peeking one eye open to check on the frankly invasive state of everyone’s hands, and Bellamy understood. Kind of. His family didn't do this kind of thing, but he'd seen it done in movies, and in Burger King once or twice.

Having touched the back of his pale hand in warning, first, Bellamy took Murphy’s hand in his. His palm was wide and cold, and with his eyes closed in a silent room, there was nothing in the world but Murphy’s hand.

Was that how Murphy felt, when they touched?

A prayer was said; one like Bellamy had never heard to a god he wasn’t privy to. During it he peeked an eye open to see Murphy staring emptily at the silverware, because _duh_ , and Wells with his eyes closed but jolting slightly, kicking Murphy beneath the table. Murphy’s lips quirked in a grin, and so did Bellamy’s, realizing that they were teasing the nut job principal.

“Bon appétit!” the man exclaimed when he was finished, and Wells yanked his hand away from Bellamy's left, wiping his palm off on his jeans like Bellamy was contagious. Murphy’s fingers uncurled gently, sliding away featherlight across Bellamy’s palm so that it tickled, and in a fit of insanity, Bellamy wanted terribly to know what Murphy thought of holding his hand.

Bellamy folded his hands together in his lap, running his fingers over his own palm the way Murphy had. Was he warm, or cold like Murphy? Did he sweat too much, or were his hands too dry? Murphy’s hands were not small, but were still smaller than Bellamy’s. Did he find Bellamy’s hands too large? Was there such a thing? Did he feel the scars on Bellamy’s knuckles, when he first reached out to touch him? Would he think less of him if he had?

Then, of course, he was torn between watching Murphy’s fingers dance over the table, the placemat, the utensils, the edge of his plate, his food— as he accidentally stuck a finger into the wobbling, jellied bouillon— and the matching monstrosity before him.

He didn’t know how to attack it. He didn’t even want to. There was a spoon, a fork, and a knife, and when Bellamy looked up, everyone was using something different, awkwardly digging, sawing, or poking into the meat gelatin where the chopped-up hot dogs were entombed. It was a fucking free for all.

“So, Mr. Blake,” Jaha said, and Bellamy panicked and chose the fork. “How’s school going?”

“Good. Well. It’s going well,” Bellamy corrected, blinking at the burgundy blob on his plate as he hovered over it, unsure.

Jaha’s brows were raised expectantly as he spooned a frank into his mouth. “Maintaining that 4.5 grade point average, I hope. You’re well on your way to making valedictorian.”

_“What?!”_ Wells cried, as Murphy sucked down a bit of the gelatin and choked onit. “Him?!”

“Mr. Blake is an exemplary student, Wells, surely you’ve noticed,” the principal said, placatingly. “Don’t you have A.P. earth science together?”

“We do, and he’s a _moron!”_

“Now wait a damn second,” said Bellamy, affronted. He didn’t care if he was a guest at this table, if Wells Jaha wanted a sock in the mouth in front of his father, he could very well get it.

“You shut up,” Wells snapped, and then glanced at him fully, looking suddenly miserable. _“Valedictorian?”_

“Yeah.” Bellamy sneered. “Looks like it.”

“No need to get worked up over it, son,” Jaha soothed, as freakishly unflappable as ever even as Wells jumped to his feet and Murphy let out a particularly hideous cough, hunched over in his chair. “It’s good and fair competition!”

“There’s nothing fair about it! He’s a _criminal!”_

“Oh, screw you.”

Jaha had finally been moved to at least put down his spoon. “Now, boys—"

“He should be expelled!” Wells shouted, banging a fist on the table. “He’s a _bully!”_

“What are you, five? I’ll show you a bully,” Bellamy snarled, grabbing Wells’ by the front of his shirt only to be immediately shoved backwards by that deceptive strength, stumbling back into his pushed-out chair.

“This is not how we treat our guests!” Jaha shouted, looking as if he were actually on the unfathomable brink of being upset. “Wells, sit down!”

Wells opened his mouth to continue spouting insults to his character, obviously righteously angry on the behalf of some poor soul that had fallen victim to Bellamy’s lunch money rounds in elementary school, but was cut off by another horrible croaking noise.

“Will _someone_ get the hotdog out of Murphy’s lung?!” Wells yelled, throwing up his hands at the interruption.

As if noticing him for the first time, Jaha leapt out of his seat and began pounding on Murphy’s back, and Wells sighed and urged his father to do the Heimlich maneuver, the three of them forgetting Bellamy for a moment.

He didn’t stay to see the aftermath, leaving his strange blob untouched and shoving himself away from the table. They were still arguing when he opened the front door and slammed it behind him, and through the window from the sidewalk he could almost see their silhouettes through the window, ranting and raving against lamplight.

He stood for a moment to collect himself, breathing in a humid night and closing his eyes against the stars over the road, the one that led from this picturesque neighborhood to broken asphalt and chainlink fences and lopsided houses, where mothers didn’t come home until nine and meals were made by older brothers, who were grateful and responsible and followed their curfew and did their chores.

He shouldn’t have come in, and he certainly shouldn’t have stayed.

“Wait!” someone shouted, just as Bellamy opened his car door. “Wait.”

He waited, shutting the door quietly as Murphy stepped down from the porch in socked feet and stomped over to Bellamy, still breathing hard from his… incident.

“It’s fine, Murphy. I’m just gonna go. I’ll still see you at secondaries.”

“No, I don’t care,” he protested, and then shook his head. “I mean I do care, but not about that. Listen, I’m sorry, okay? He’s just protective, and... jealous, probably.”

“Of who? Me?” Bellamy scoffed, turning away and fishing in his pocket for the car keys. “I’m a moron, remember? And a criminal, and a bully?”

“You’re gonna be valedictorian, so you’re obviously not a moron. And I think it’s cool that you rob people,” Murphy blurted. “I mean, not cool that you could go to jail, or any other ill effects that being convicted of larceny might have on your familial relationships or your emotional well-being or your unstable income or your future job opportunities, but cool that you stole a snake. Or that's what I heard. And that you ran from the cops forever, which is awesome—"

As Murphy rambled on and on, Bellamy had turned back, feeling a smile grow and grow on his face. He just kept going.

“And, look, I’ve dealt with my fair share of assholes, okay?” he said, which must have been Murphy-speak for ‘relentlessly bullied.’ He was wringing his hands, and tilted his head up, closer to meeting Bellamy's eyes than he had ever been before. Bellamy was struck by the intensity of him, the blazing need for Bellamy to understand. “For what it's worth, I think you’re alright.”

Bellamy found it was worth quite a lot.

He took a moment longer to stare, eyes roaming over the boy he was beginning to think of as... something. “Goodnight, Murphy,” he said at last, slipping into his car.

“See you later alligator,” Murphy replied, and then sucked in a breath and didn’t let go of it.

Never taking his eyes away as he peeled out onto the road, Bellamy watched him, waiting. Murphy gave it twenty seconds before he slumped, beating a fist against his forehead.

Despite everything that kept going wrong, Bellamy was starting to feel like he was laughing an awful lot, lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coronavirus bad but look on the bright side: fic updates
> 
> thank you for reading! i am very stressed about this fic and i hope you actually like it! kudos and comments are really appreciated <33 thank you so much to those who have left nice comments already :-) posting unfinished chapter fics do be depriving me of readership and feedback so i'm very grateful...
> 
> i hope everyone is nice and hearty and well. if you're especially bored come hang out with me on twitter @slugcities and become an accessory to my crimes
> 
> EDIT 3/28/20: i know i promised sunday updates but i lied... taking a week or two off from this fic to work on a different one (still murphamy, of course). then i'll get back to work on RBAOD! <3 thank you for all your lovely comments, i'll respond soon! (brain broken, head empty)


	5. nighttime insects and normal irresponsible jackass things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know. i know. i'm sorry. i can explain. see u in the end notes

Murphy was completely blind. 

He could not recall a time when he wasn’t completely blind, and he always would be. And yet, there were times that Murphy felt especially blind.

When teachers showed videos without audio description and then wanted them to write about what they’d watched, and forgot about him and his pesky little individualized education plan. When he had his headphones on and discovered someone had been trying to get his attention, or that he had ten missed calls from some assorted Jaha worrying himself to death and was forced to feel sheepish. In the shower, when he was naked as the day he was born and if he got turned around enough, would scream in the opposite direction of the knife murderer like some kind of hapless idiot.

Standing in the boy’s locker room, no echoing teenage chatter or the disorienting slams of locker doors to be heard and unable to find his stupid goddamn unfindable shirt, Murphy felt especially blind.

It was Friday, 4 PM. Murphy knew this because he and Bellamy had gone for a practice run the day before. A definitive Thursday, as far as Murphy was concerned. A good Thursday. A nice Thursday.

Bellamy was getting easier to run with. If Murphy had been on his deathbed and expected to give up one last terrible confession, he might have even admitted that running with Bellamy was… fun.

Maybe it wasn’t wind-in-his-hair-one-thousand-miles-per-hour-soaring-free-like-some-kind-of-majestic-falcon-type running, but every time Murphy had tripped, less frequently than ever before, might he add, Bellamy had grabbed him and reeled him back in before he hit the ground. They even talked about other things while they ran, like music or school or the weather, none of which were particularly deep or fascinating but sounded rather listenable coming out of Bellamy’s mouth nonetheless, and made running feel… normal.

They were getting better. Much better. They might even have made the team, if he could find his fucking shirt.

According to his phone’s calendar secondary try-outs were meant to be at 4 PM, and Murphy was, almost certainly, in the boy’s locker room at 4 PM on Friday. So either his calendar was wrong, or half of the prospective male cross-country team members of Franco High had died in a horrible fiery accident that hadn’t yet made the news. Murphy figured he should probably pursue one hunch or the other, but didn’t think it would be in good taste to do so with his tits out.

As he was draped over the suspiciously sweaty bench between rows of lockers, feeling around the cold, dusty tile for his running shirt, the door to the locker room swung open at last. Murphy froze, listening for signs of friend or foe, and stayed tense as the mystery character silently made their away across the room until they were right on top of him. Then a t-shirt slapped itself conveniently over Murphy’s head, and he let out his breath in one great huff as he whipped it off again.

“We were supposed to start at 3:45.”

Trying not to feel embarrassed and reminding himself that if it were anyone but Bellamy that he wouldn’t be, Murphy located the head hole and shoved the shirt on, and then located the arm holes, as one does, and wore the shirt. And then he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“This is the part where most people would say ‘Sorry I’m late, is there still time?’”

Murphy stood to shove his duffel bag into a locker, pointedly not making any faces as he heard his chucks tumble out and patted around to stuff them haphazardly back inside. 

“Sorry I’m late, is there still time?”

Bellamy sighed, and Murphy could always sense an eye-roll. “Coach is making everyone wait on you, so let’s hurry.”

“So generous,” Murphy sneered, unfolding his cane and beginning to make his way to the door. “We should ask if they’ll let me take the lead once we start running. You know, given the circumstances.”

“The circumstances being not that you're blind, but that you’re fifteen minutes late to try-outs because you put the wrong time in your phone and your shirt’s on inside out as well as backwards. Normal irresponsible jackass things.”

Murphy thought it was a bit tight around the neck. He perched his cane on the bench and made to lift his shirt but paused with his fingers curled around the hem. "Don’t look.”

“I’ve already seen. Plus we're guys.”

“Just don’t look, will you? I don’t want you staring at me when I can't tell whether you're staring at me.”

“Why the hell would I be staring at you?” Bellamy argued.

“Why wouldn’t you be? Something wrong with me?”

“Jesus, Murphy, what don’t you understand about ‘let’s hurry?’” Bellamy huffed, grabbing the neckline of Murphy’s shirt and yanking it upwards until Murphy’s arms were crooked, still stuck hanging in his sleeves. They stood like that a moment, Murphy dangling like he was on a clothes hanger and Bellamy still and silent.

“Were you trying to take my shirt off?”

“Well, someone had to!” Bellamy insisted, sounding worried.

“Me, Blake,” replied Murphy. _“I_ would be the one to take my shirt off.”

After another moment of considering quiet, Bellamy carefully tugged Murphy’s shirt back down in apology, and his knuckles grazed the goosebumped skin of Murphy’s sides. Murphy, who became suddenly all too awkward about Bellamy trying to strip him in an empty locker room and cleared his throat, turning away.

“Don’t look,” he repeated.

“Not looking,” relented a weary Bellamy.

Murphy took it off, turned the shirt around and flipped it inside-out, and slipped it back on. He grabbed his cane again and went to the door, listening to Bellamy following close behind as they traveled across the squeaky gym floor and out onto the warm, rustling grass of the soccer field. Bellamy was silent the whole time, only speaking up to quietly mention that they were coming upon the waiting team, gravel-voiced.

There was no way of knowing, and God knew why, but Murphy hoped he had looked.

Secondary try-outs was their last chance, so Bellamy was careful to do _everything_ right. Even if everything that went wrong was usually Murphy’s fault.

He stepped to the starting line and let Murphy take his shoulder. He stood on his toes, knee bent. He took off at his fastest to shove their way to the front, and Murphy matched him with ease. They ran and they ran and they ran until they had broken free from the crowd, and then they slowed, running steady and even, saving their breath for only the necessities.

“Curve on our left, twenty feet,” said Bellamy, when there was a curve on their left. “Going downhill in a few seconds,” Bellamy said, when they were going downhill in a few seconds. “Okay, my leg is cramping—“ “Suck it up, Blake.” “Yeah, yeah, sorry. I got it,” said Bellamy, when his leg was cramping but he’d had it.

And goddamn, had they had it.

They crossed the finish line first, and Murphy’s smug, awful little grin when Coach said so should have been photographed and filmed and painted, whatever it would take for Ontari Colderbrook to see it, as she crashed through the brush and tore onto the field too little too late.

(In a terrifying and lucid moment of Murphy-ness, which must have been contagious, Bellamy thought the words, _“Take that, bitch.”)_

“A bike.”

Bellamy hadn’t minded riding it to school that day at all, but now, in front of Murphy, he felt a little sheepish. “My mom’s got the car for a work thing. So, for now…” He stopped shamefully rubbing his arm to gesture limply at the crooked old contraption. “Bike.”

They were stood in the school parking lot as the rest of the assorted athletes and other extracurricular-types peeled out in their own vehicles and disappeared down the road, the setting sun glinting on hubcaps and the edges of rolled-down windows.

“Is it at least a cool bike?” Murphy asked.

The bike in question was a faded, dandelion yellow mountain bike with beige bullhorn handles and a torn seat in the same color, the material peeling ever sneakily away. There were a few layers of duct tape doing most of the work holding the top tube and the head tube together, and the pedals dangled miserably.

“Uh, yeah,” Bellamy lied, chewing his lip. “It’s pretty cool, I guess.”

Murphy stepped closer, tapping his fingers along rusty handlebars. “Wells is staying extra late for some dorky leadership team shit. He can drive me. Jealous though I am that you’ll be the one getting all the wind in your hair.”

“I can still take you home!” Bellamy blurted, horrifying himself. Naturally, Murphy’s lips peeled into a mean, doubtful grin, his brows quirked.

“On _this?”_

Well, there was no backing down then. “You can… uh, ride the handlebars.”

“I can ride the handlebars, can I?” he repeated, grinning completely now, cheeks dimpled. It was not a kind smile, rife with amusement at Bellamy’s expense, but Bellamy found himself smiling back. Murphy didn’t mean any harm, he just seemed to find everything ridiculous, and Bellamy was starting to notice it too. Everything _was_ ridiculous. So why the hell not?

Bellamy came close and unlocked the bike from the bike rack, glancing up from where he kneeled on the pavement to catch a glimpse of Murphy’s rising eyebrows at the noise. “You _were_ kidding, right?”

“No,” answered Bellamy, taking Murphy’s gym bag from him and tugging him to the front of the bicycle by his elbow, placing each of his hands on the handlebars behind him. “Get on.”

Murphy was still grinning in disbelief, mouth open to protest and pale eyes wide. “We’ll be too heavy.”

“For old Herbie here?” Bellamy asked, patting the bike’s deceptively crooked, wilting frame and swinging Murphy’s bag onto his shoulders. “No way. This bike’s a survivor. Trust me.”

Murphy shook his head as Bellamy circled around to perch himself on the peeling saddle and flicked the kickstand up with his heel, leveling the bike with a foot against the pavement.

“Oh, what the hell,” Murphy muttered, and jumped up on his toes and wiggled his way between the handlebars. Bellamy kept the bike steady, letting Murphy adjust. “Hurts my ass,” he complained, getting settled at last and gripping the handlebars until his knuckles were white as Bellamy rolled them away from the bike rack.

“Mine too, at least,” Bellamy offered, shifting on the hard saddle. Why couldn’t bikes be more comfortable? And have more than one seat? And more wheels? And air-conditioning? And a gas pedal?

“Not really helping my situation, but thanks for the solidarity,” Murphy grumbled. “You sure you know how to drive this thing?”

“You’re not scared, are you, Murphy?” Bellamy teased, walking the bike a few yards forward through the parking lot and watching Murphy’s hands curl tighter and tighter around the handlebar grips.

“No, I’m just precariously perched on the front of a maniac’s bicycle with nothing rooting me to this world but two little handlebars and if we started heading toward a cliff I would be none the wiser. What’s there to be afraid of?”

Bellamy chuckled at that. “You were never afraid of being driven off of a cliff when I took you home in the car.”

“Good point. Bravely onward,”Murphy commanded, and onward they went. Bellamy kicked forward, flinging them into a wobbling roll that sent Murphy’s back ramrod straight until Bellamy got pedaling and steadied them at a pleasant speed. They must have looked absurd, but Bellamy found he didn’t really care. Murphy clearly didn’t.

It was a pretty evening, with the sun barely peeking over the horizon. The darkness of the city roads was softened by the occasional orange streetlamp, dotted by the white specks of moths. Few were still outside, and homes glowed gold in their windows, casting black silhouettes of people going about their lives like rows of little stories that Bellamy would never hear.

He felt suddenly sad, for a moment, that Murphy wasn’t seeing this. But then they began rolling along a bit faster on an incline and Bellamy decided it was imperative that he be able to look past Murphy, and stretched up and to the left so that his chin was on Murphy’s shoulder. Murphy did not startle, and his eyes were closed to the wind. There wasn’t a smile on his lips— Murphy was not the type to make faces just for the sake of it— but he was clearly peaceful, clearly happy.

Bellamy thought it must have been like the way you don’t miss a song you’ve never heard, the way you don’t grieve a person you never learned the name of, the way you don’t wonder too much about the millions of colors you cannot see.

Murphy might have been curious to know, but not sad. So Bellamy decided not to be sad either.

His own home faded into view over the horizon at the top of a hill, the white siding yellowed by dust and the lawn overgrown with clover and weeds. There was a light on in the window. Octavia had been picked up after try-outs by Lincoln and headed over to his house, so his mom must have come home early.

“We’re going past my house, here. August Street,” Bellamy mentioned just to orient Murphy, sparing little more than another glance at the light on the window, distracted by Murphy as he wrinkled his nose. “Our neighbor has honeysuckle bushes. They smell stronger at night. I think I read it has something to do with being pollinated by nighttime insects; moths and stuff.”

“That’s nice,” Murphy said quietly, in that accidentally earnest and genuine way he sometimes did, and Bellamy hooked his chin on Murphy’s shoulder again as he smiled. He supposed it _was_ nice, to always smell flowers at night.

It was also nice to hear Murphy scream and curse and laugh as Bellamy peddled them into the center of the empty road and let them go flying down a hill or two, leaning into his running mate’s ear to speak against the sound of the wind and urge him to hold on tight. Then it was nice to feel Murphy relaxing, as they came up on Murphy’s street after a few more turns, the blue townhouse rising up against the violet sky and the edges of a sunset. It was nice to feel Murphy leaning on him, his back pressed against Bellamy’s shoulder, his chest. The look of their hands sharing the handlebars; that was nice. Feeling trusted, being close to him. All… very nice.

Especially nice that they might have been friends, he and the impossible John Murphy. Bellamy felt… special.

He shook his head to clear it of nonsense thoughts just in time, noticing a low-hanging branch ahead. “Duck,” he directed, like he did on their runs. They’d gotten pretty good at communicating. Way better than before, at least.

“Never seen one before, Blake?” Murphy asked, brow raised and a funny little smile on his face.

“No, like, duck,” Bellamy repeated, glancing nervously at the looming branch. Surely Murphy didn’t think he meant there was a duck in the path. He had to be kidding.

Murphy shook his head. “Partial to geese, myself,” he joked, not having quite the effect he must have wanted as the leaves ahead of him trembled in anticipation, close enough to touch. Too late, Bellamy realized he was not kidding.

“Murphy, duck your—!” insisted Bellamy, reaching up to try and force Murphy’s head down. Murphy, of course, resisted stubbornly, spouting choice words about being manhandled that were inevitably cut short by a face-full of branch.

It wasn’t a swear and it wasn’t a shout, but Murphy made some sort of hilarious yet pitifully confused noise as he was thwacked by the tree, letting go of the handlebars and toppling off of the bike, which then attempted to roll bravely onward and collapsed just short of plowing over Murphy’s legs, sending Bellamy pitching forward into the pile like the cherry on top.

Dragging himself out from under Bellamy, Murphy sat up carefully, swiping his fingers over one of the many tiny, weeping cuts across his face. Bellamy turned over with a groan and picked a pebble from one skinned knee, plucking a leaf from the other.

“You meant—“ Murphy began, gesturing near the tree.

“Yeah,” said Bellamy, allowing himself a sigh.

So they were still working on it. The communicating thing.

“Wells is gonna go berserk,” Murphy grumbled, tending to his wounds on the toilet seat as Bellamy tended to his on the edge of the bathtub, smoothing beads of antibiotic ointment over his scraped knees.

“What for? You’re seventeen years old,” Bellamy argued, taking Murphy’s hand and pressing the tube of Neosporin into his palm. Murphy tossed his wet washcloth aside, spotted pink with blood, and uncapped the tube.

“It shocks his fragile sensibilities when I get hurt running,” he explained, voice thick, drawling with annoyance.

Bellamy flicked the little protective sheets from his opened band-aids onto the bathroom floor, taping one over each knee. “You didn’t get hurt running. You got hurt on a bike. So it doesn’t count.”

“Normal kid injury?” Murphy asked, turning somewhat toward Bellamy with an almost-smile. His face shone with here-and-there glimmers of antibiotic ointment, but only some of it was actually smeared on any of his cuts.

“Normal kid injury,” Bellamy agreed, standing up and coming close to take the tube from Murphy’s hands. “You missed a spot. May I?”

“Go crazy,” Murphy murmured, closing his eyes as Bellamy thumbed a bit of the paste over his wounds, which were fairly harmless and barely visible after the bleeding had stopped and they’d been cleaned. Still, though. He’d chucked a blind kid off of his bike.

Bellamy took his time smearing the ointment across the long bridge of Murphy’s nose and the prominent apples of his cheeks, which had turned pink in Bellamy’s hands. Bellamy bit back a smile. Of course Murphy would hate it, being tended to like a child. “You hurt anywhere else?” 

Looking considering and hesitant, Murphy reached around to touch his lower back. He didn’t flinch or hiss, but he clearly found something, and Bellamy tapped the underside of his elbow to urge him up. When Murphy stood and turned around, Bellamy gingerly lifted the hem of his shirt and found a line of friction burn up his spine from where Murphy had slipped off the handlebars and faced the wrath of Herbie’s still-spinning front wheel. Bellamy sighed, rolling Murphy’s shirt up and taking a knee to tend to the wound.

“I’m sorry, Murphy. We shouldn’t have tried that. I’ll… be more careful. In the future.”

“That’s sweet, Blake, really. It sickens me. But I don’t want to be careful. I’m… I’m always careful,” Murphy said, crossing his arms over his chest for lack of anywhere else to put his hands, as Bellamy cut away a long piece of gauze and smeared it with antibiotic cream. “I had fun, okay? Even after you ran me over.”

“I did not _run you over._ Don’t go telling people I ran you over.”

“And now he’s threatening me. The terror never ends.”

Bellamy grinned and shook his head, smoothing the final bandage between them up the dip of the other boy’s spine. “Just… shut up, Murphy.”

He was still rolling down his shirt as Murphy turned around again, and Bellamy wondered if he knew, _really_ knew, how close they were. His hands were hovering at Murphy’s waist, and the backs of Murphy’s knees were pressed against the toilet, leaving him no room to back up, and there were so few inches between them.

“You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“I’m fine,” Bellamy promised, as Murphy stared with what must have been concern at the place where his collarbones met. He still had a leaf in his hair, and Bellamy left it where it was, lest he toe the line between friendly assistance and grooming each other like monkeys.

“Good. Can't break my shitty guide before our first race,” Murphy explained ever-so-sweetly, reaching out to push Bellamy away in order to get past him. Bellamy quickly took a silent step back to put a more appropriate stretch of space between them, feeling weirdly guilty. “I’d invite you to stay for dinner, but I figure it’s probably better manners just to let you escape while you still can.”

It was true, Bellamy wasn’t in much of a hurry for another round with Wells Jaha, but he… wouldn’t have minded hanging out with Murphy a little longer. “I got work soon anyway,” he said, and Murphy led him into the foyer by tracing the walls, where Bellamy returned his gym bag and unfolded Murphy’s cane for him. Murphy was looking especially constipated, and Bellamy realized why when he next spoke up.

“Thank you for getting me onto the team,” he said, sincere and a standard amount of uncomfortable.

“Thank you for keeping me out of jail.”

Murphy barked out a laugh, and Bellamy grinned, always feeling like a light turned on inside him at the sound. It was just that— for all his jokes and grins and pranks— Murphy never really laughed.

It was special. It was just for Bellamy.

“I’ll see you for some more civic duty at our first practice, right?” Murphy asked, as Bellamy stepped onto the porch and retrieved a crookeder-now Herbie from its position leaning against the siding of Murphy’s house, looking increasingly like a bike if a bike could be drunk.

For some reason he was noticing now more than ever the breeze, the tinkling sound of moths flitting around the house’s lights, the perfume of the gardenias along the walkway.

Murphy still looked like a strange painting, an untold story, the silhouette of him on the porch dark against the honey light of the house. He was gripping his cane in both hands, hopeful; as if he still had any doubt at all that Bellamy was on his team. Whether he liked it or not.

“Can’t wait,” Bellamy answered, and meant it. Murphy lingered for a moment, and then slammed the door shut on his growing smile.

Bellamy imagined Murphy laughing between his handlebars all the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. listen
> 
> i know it took me over a month to post this little filler ass chapter. but college demands got demanding and i was kind of stuck on this fic. THE GOOD NEWS IS: i have totally mapped out the rest of the fic and am excited to write it and i think you're really going to like it. i mean i hope. /i/ think it's gonna be fun. like there's a SHIFT in the next chapter and things start getting really fun imo. you'll see. or it'll suck idk i won't pretend this dumb little fluff fic is a masterpiece SDFKJSD
> 
> so hopefully the updates will come easier and faster now. still no promises that'll i'll be updating every weekend again because that was clearly not sustainable... thank you so much for being patient and leaving such nice comments :( i still have to get around to thanking you all my brain still broke. but god i read them and reread them and read them AGAIN that's how much i love and appreciate them do not think for a second that your feedback goes unnoticed
> 
> thank you for reading and chatting with me i love you
> 
> i'm @slugcities on twitter come hang out and talk about moths! :-)
> 
> p.s. if you're in the market for more in-progress murphamy chapter fics please check out my friend sapphictomaz's wips on this very same website, "better on my own" and "toward eternity," as well as oogaboogu's "a garden of yarrow and foxglove" and leave them some of your lovely encouraging thoughts as well <3


	6. mystery pie and an eighteen-time balloon darts champion

Bellamy Blake was an eighteen-time balloon darts champion.

The Blakes had gone to the Arkadia County Fair every year since Bellamy was old enough to walk and, arguably, to talk. Having his mom’s attention all to himself as she followed him around the fairgrounds growing up was great, but having a new little sister to teach all his tricks to was even better. Octavia had never quite mastered balloon darts the way Bellamy had, but Christ, she was a monster on the rope ladder.

Bellamy’s mom hadn’t come this year. Said she wasn’t feeling up to it. Bellamy tried not to let it bother him, putting on a smile as he invited Octavia to come along, but he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something wrong. This was their _thing._

“Going again?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy answered, wordlessly handing off his last prize to the nearest passing child, a little girl who could no longer be seen behind the giant stuffed dolphin.

“You’re gonna clear me out, kid,” the carnie complained, sliding a handful of darts across the counter.

“I’ll try not to win this time,” Bellamy promised, and then burst each of the three balloons he’d aimed at. The carnie stared at the deflated balloons a moment, and sighed as he yanked another random large-tier plushie off of a dangling hook. Bellamy shrugged in apology. “I tried.”

“I’m sure,” the carnie grumbled, shoving the stuffed animal at him.

It was a big, blue butterfly with curly antennae, and little cobalt sequins glittered on its wings. “You want this, O?” he asked, but no one answered.

Octavia had wandered off somewhere without a word, which she was prone to do when something caught her eye. Bellamy bid the annoyed carnie adieu with a small salute and tucked the butterfly under his arm, making his way toward a gaggle of colorful, reeking concessions vans.

The fair looked especially nice this year. It was late afternoon and the sun was low, casting sugary colors across the sky and cut through with beams of neon lights from glowing signs and the swinging lasers of the “zero-gravity” ride that Bellamy hated, among others. The rows were packed with games and attractions, and there was even a new big swing ride that seemed way, way higher than Bellamy remembered the last one being. So much so that his neck began to ache, craning to look up at it as it flung its riders around in massive circles. He’d never wanted to go on that ride, preferring bumper cars and the occasional rollercoaster, but there was something different about it. It seemed like nobody ever really screamed on the big swing, not for long at least, and Bellamy wasn’t sure why. It couldn't have been peaceful; it looked terrifying. But, also kind of masochistically fun.

He turned forward again as Octavia’s laugh chimed somewhere in the crowd, and found her reaching up to one of the high van windows to accept a cone of cotton candy and pass another off to Fox, who was wearing short-shorts despite the chill, dusted in gold glitter and haloed by a daisy crown like she was at a music festival. There was never anything to do in this town, so it made people sort of crazy like that— trying to make a _moment_ out of everything.

He thought to intercept Octavia and join her and Fox, maybe get a funnel cake and feel like shit for the rest of the evening because of it, but thought better of it as Fox’s friend Roma returned with a tray of nachos and the three girls began chatting and sharing snacks at their picnic table, and suddenly the image of Bellamy sitting with them seemed… weird.

God, he needed to make some friends of his own.

Bellamy turned to retreat to the balloon darts booth, practicing his apology face for when the carnie saw him coming between peering longingly back over his shoulder at the funnel cake van, when something suddenly smacked his shoe.

“Coming through,” muttered the apparent culprit, already passing Bellamy. Bellamy looked over his shoulder and watched him go, the familiar shape of his running mate walking away. He was dressed plainly in a gray tee and black jeans, not making an event out of anything.

_“‘Excuse me,’”_ corrected Wells, jumping to avoid Murphy’s cane as he swung it in an exaggeratedly round arc and tried to trip him with it. “You’re rude.”

“Big whoop. I’ll never see that person again,” Murphy grumbled, his voice fading away as the two brothers disappeared into the thickening crowd.

Bellamy, once again, thought to go after him. He hesitated, stumbling backwards as he stood in the opposite direction of the flow of the crowd and was pushed by excited passersby, all of them walking with friends and family. Eventually, Bellamy shook his head and turned back around, making his way for the balloon darts booth again.

They’d only ever really hung out in the context of community service. Bellamy ran with Murphy, and helped him with his errands, and drove him to and fro, but they weren’t friends outside of that, were they? It seemed like the jackass needed all the friends he could get, but maybe Murphy didn’t want friends. Maybe he was only friendly with Bellamy because no one else would be his guide.

Were they even friendly at all, or had Bellamy made that up in his head?

“Not you,” the carnie muttered, shaking his head and waving a finger as Bellamy continued approaching, his muddled and unhappy thoughts clearing. What did he care if Murphy didn’t want to be friends? Murphy was a jerk.

“One more round,” Bellamy insisted, shoving a quarter at the carnie.

“Just one. Then I’m dropping you down to middle-tier prizes only.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“You don’t even want the stupid stuffed animals.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Bellamy argued.

“Principles? This is balloon darts.”

Bellamy snatched his darts from the counter and hit the first two balloons in quick succession, but then got to thinking about Murphy again.

They’d had a nice moment outside his house that one time, right? And when they’d ridden Herbie together? And at their first two practices last week, when they hadn’t fallen into any holes or rivers and crossed the finish line first again? What made two people friends?  It was never this hard being friends with Atom or Miller. They just kind of… were. Why was this whole thing with Murphy so… so… _complicated?_

Bellamy pitched his last dart as hard as he could, and gaped as the dart slipped along the edge of a half-inflated balloon and bounced off of the dartboard, clattering onto the counter below.

The carnie stared incredulously at the dart as well, and picked it up to inspect the dull point of it. “I didn’t shave this down while you were gone, or anything,” he swore. “Tough luck, champ. Sorry to break your record. You can still get something on the middle-tier, if you want.”

“No thanks,” Bellamy grumbled, snatching the shiny, stuffed butterfly off of the counter and making to storm off somewhere. If he could think of a place to storm off to.  Bellamy frowned, staring out at the bustling grounds at a loss. 

This was turning out to be kind of a shitty fair day.

“I'll play. Unless I'm standing in front of the porta-johns,” said someone else who had arrived at the booth, and Bellamy absent-mindedly glanced over at the newcomer as the carnie answered 'balloon darts,' and slowly scooted a handful of them over the counter in exchange for a quarter before backing up into a corner, flattening himself against the wall. Bellamy only knew one person who could illicit that kind of reaction.

“Just got to pop at least one, but you get three turns no matter what...” the carnie explained, sounding nervous. “You sure you got it?”

Murphy sniffed, ever-so-casual, and then flung his first dart at the wall of balloons. It bounced off of the bottom edge of the board and ricocheted onto the ground. On his second shot, he scraped the edge of one but ultimately didn’t pop it. As Murphy lifted up the third dart, he hesitated, and then put his hand down again, clacking the dart against the counter and pulling an exasperated face.

“Sure would be nice if there was someone around who was good at darts,” he announced, and Bellamy didn’t move, thoughts about bugging Murphy outside of cross-country niggling at the back of his mind.

Murphy took a deep breath. “Or someone who _guides a blind person_ on a regular basis, maybe?”

Still, Bellamy wasn’t sure whether to respond, and thought about just slinking away. Then they could just avoid the whole awkward ordeal of running into each other outside of their normal arrangement, and everyone would be happy. Or, happi _er,_ at least.

“Hey, Guardian of the Balloons. Is there a somewhat large teenage boy-man with an unappealing personality standing near this booth?”

“Uh, yes?” the carnie answered, and Bellamy was really starting to hate that guy.

“Blake, do you wanna save me the trouble of saying it?” Murphy asked, still facing the booth.

“It’s rude not to announce myself,” Bellamy muttered, scuffing his sneaker against the dirt.

Murphy turned toward the sound of his voice, his unfocused eyes somehow piercing. “Wells said I ran into you while you were headed over here. Why are you hiding from me?”

“I don’t know,” Bellamy mumbled, feeling stupid now. “You were with him, and I didn’t want to… I don’t know.”

Murphy stared thoughtfully past Bellamy’s shoulder, and then a gentler look washed over his expression, a gentler sound took over his voice. “Get over here and help me win something. This is the only game I can’t cheat at.”

Bellamy considered his options for a moment, but decided there weren’t any, really. Whether he and Murphy were friends wasn’t relevant. Murphy was asking for his help, and Bellamy wouldn’t say no to that.

“Well,” he began, approaching Murphy and touching the inside of his elbow with a single finger in question. Murphy nodded, and Bellamy wrapped a hand around his elbow and shuffled him to the center of the counter, positioning him right in front. “The darts are dulled and the balloons are under-inflated—“

“Hey!” the carnie protested. Murphy ignored him and Bellamy did too.

“So your goal is more to, uh, smush the balloon than it is to pierce one.”

“Right,” said Murphy, making a small motion with the dart as if to line it up. “Look good?”

“Looks good. Hard, fast, and straight,” advised Bellamy.

“Just how I like it,” Murphy joked, though his face fell as soon as the dart flew from his fingers. “I mean, not— I was kidding about the... uh, all of it, but I’m just saying. Not the— I don't— you know…” He trailed off, knitting his brows together and turning away from Bellamy. “Did I hit one?”

“Did it sound like you hit one?” the carnie murmured, plucking the dart from between an unfortunate teddy bear’s eyes.

“Maybe we should try winning somewhere else,” Bellamy suggested, mildly concerned as Murphy snatched his cane from where he’d leaned it against the booth counter and began sweeping off in no particular direction, nodding his head.

“That game’s stupid anyways,” Bellamy added after he had collected his butterfly and caught up to Murphy, tucking the plushie into his armpit and pocketing his hands to walk alongside him. “No one ever wins.”

Murphy opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and then shook his head, leaving behind whatever it was he meant to say. “Just take us somewhere worthwhile before I snap and lay waste to the rubber duck game.”

It hardly came as any surprise to Bellamy anymore, that a grin might have filled his face. “Sir, yes sir.”

Murphy was a horrible, filthy cheater.

At the ring toss game he acted completely helpless, flinging the rings like he was trying to send them flying across state lines until he was allowed by the sympathetic carnie to scoot closer and practically place the ring on top of a bottle. He did the same at the fishbowl game, where the carnie seemed unwilling to baby him until he sent a ping pong ball whizzing past another player’s face and established himself as a danger to others. The pattern continued at the inflatable basketball game and the dunking booth, where he simply walked up to the target and pressed on it to the supportive cheering of nearby fairgoers. They even let him stick his bare fucking hands into the rubber shark pool. That game was for _children._

“This should be illegal,” Bellamy muttered as Murphy piled another stuffed animal into his arms and patted his way up to Bellamy’s face to straighten his hot pink YOLO glasses.

“You would deprive me of the simple pleasures in life?” Murphy asked as they strolled along and Bellamy narrated the names of booths they were passing in a quieter voice, his guide voice, which he thought of as reading the subtitles of the visible world to Murphy underneath their actual conversation. 

“Let’s play something that’s actually fair,” Bellamy insisted, spluttering on the shedding fur of a unicorn to Murphy’s obvious amusement. Up ahead, Bellamy saw the flashing lights running up and down the track of a high striker scale, the big bell waiting to be rung at the top of it. “You can’t cheat at the strong man game.”

“The hammer thing? They’ll just let me stand on it.”

“Well, I’ll tell them not to.”

“You and what army?”

“These,” Bellamy decided, smacking Murphy in the face with the gangly leg of an uncomfortably long frog.

“They’re still loyal to me,” replied Murphy, snatching away the first animal he could get his hands on and clutching the clownfish close. “I’ll discharge them before you can make muppet mutineers of them."

“And how do you plan to get rid of them?” Bellamy asked, privately pleased that they were finally discussing whether or not he was going to have to lug Murphy’s dragon hoard around all evening.

“I don’t know, give them to some stupid kids or something,” Murphy demanded, knocking into a picnic table bench with his cane and then asking the bench if anyone was sitting on it. The bench did not reply, so Murphy sat.

Bellamy couldn’t not smile. “That’s shockingly charitable of you, Murphy.”

“I just don’t want the shit,” he protested, shooing flippantly in Bellamy’s direction. “I couldn't care less what you do with them.”

“In that case I’ll just throw them out,” said Bellamy, watching him carefully.

“Fine,” replied Murphy, seemingly unmoved.

Bellamy rolled his eyes as he wandered into the crowd to hand out the unwanted toys, avoiding grateful and suspicious conversations with parents, and feeling both pleased and confused by the little girl who was so thrilled about the YOLO shades that she squealed. He personally had never screamed with joy over hot pink reminders of his mortality, but that was just him.

When Bellamy returned to the picnic table, prepared to gloat about dumping the stuffed animals into a stinky smelly garbage can where no one would ever find them just to irk Murphy, he was missing.

“You sure you got it, kid?” Bellamy heard somewhere off to the right, a deep and burly voice followed by a younger, raspier, ruder one.

“Got both arms, don’t I? Or— oh _shit,_ are those gone too?"

John Murphy was never hard to find in a crowd.

Bellamy made his way to the high striker, grinning as Murphy dropped his cane and took up the cartoonishly giant mallet. 

“Alright,” the carnie gave in after a moment of beard-stroking, throwing his hands up to address the small crowd loitering around the game. “You know how it goes, people. Ring the bell and get a prize. Only the strongest can ring it!”

Bellamy almost didn’t want to watch. Murphy was an athlete, but he was a runner. He had strong legs and a strong core, but he was not a big dude, and this was a test of upper-body strength. Bellamy thought it safe to imagine that a strong breeze could have blown Murphy over.

Murphy didn’t seem to agree, lifting the big hammer onto his shoulder and spreading his legs, steadying himself.

“You watching?” he asked, and Bellamy decided to be brave and believe that Murphy was talking to him.

“I’m watching,” he shouted back over the noises of the fair and the heads of the crowd, some of which turned to look over their shoulders at him. Bellamy was proven right as Murphy grinned, and then brought the mallet down in a great big arc, heaving forward to slam it against the pedal with everything he had.

He damn near shattered the bell.

Murphy had seemed arrogant approaching the game, but stood there and grinned in surprise as the little crowd cheered for him. Bellamy elbowed his way through to meet Murphy, smiling all the way.

“Holy shit, man,” he said as he came in close, laughing as Murphy slapped Bellamy on the chest. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You see that, Bellamy?!” Murphy crowed, lifting the mallet in a somewhat threatening manner. “How’s that for cheating?!”

“Fair and square,” Bellamy conceded, entranced by the glow of Murphy’s joy, the sound of his _name_ on Murphy’s stupid lips. Did he even realize he said it?

“You can pick out a prize—“

“Fuck off!” Murphy yelled, and then held his hands out to the carnie in surrender. “Sorry. No thank you,” he enunciated carefully, the words rolling off his tongue in a very unnatural manner. Bellamy appreciated his trying, glancing apologetically at the unbothered carnie. The burly man shrugged and swapped Murphy’s cane for the giant hammer, which Bellamy was sure Murphy wished he could keep.

“Now we need to get you away from this game before you decide to steal my spotlight,” Murphy said, tugging Bellamy away from the high striker booth by the wrist. Bellamy stared at the hand wrapped around him, realizing that even though he was Murphy’s guide, it was always Murphy dragging him around.

“I was kind of hoping I could—“ he began, and closed his eyes in a laugh as Murphy yanked him sharply forward and trudged on toward the outskirts of the fair.

“Nope. Let’s go.”

Murphy’s foster father was into a lot of weird stuff. Airbrushed t-shirts and novelty caricatures being rather definitively among those stuffs.

A place that always had airbrush and caricature artists was the annual Arkadia County Fair, and Murphy had been prepared to spend his Saturday evening sitting in uncomfortable chairs and getting his likeness painted onto cheap, ill-fitting shirts or drawn in an exaggerated manner for Jaha’s entertainment. Caricature artists seemed to think his face was a real treat, which was concerning, and Wells had been insulted on behalf of Murphy’s nose following these drawings many a time.

_“It’s a great nose! I love your nose!”_

_“Thank you, Wells.”_

_“I wish I had your nose! It’s very chiseled, and handsome!”_

_“It’s fine, Wells. Thanks.”_

_“Don’t ever doubt your nose!”_

_“I’m not doubting my nose, Wells. In fact I’m more aware of it than I’ve ever been. Now can we please let the nice man start his drawing?”_

But Jaha had broken off from the two of them to inquire about the safety of every single ride on the fairgrounds after spontaneously describing the collapse of a pendulum ride somewhere that killed one and injured seven, in graphic detail. 

Then Wells had run into Clarke and her crew, and begrudgingly mentioned that he’d seen Bellamy sulking at the balloon darts booth once Murphy started getting an attitude with his friends, shipping him off to hang out with his court-ordered babysitter.

That was okay. Murphy was growing quite fond of his court-ordered babysitter.

Jesus. He was, wasn’t he?

Anyway, Murphy was no longer doomed to sit in various chairs doing nothing all evening, thanks to circumstances such as Bellamy Blake. Which was how he found himself in the fairground barn, swamped by the farmyard smells of prize heifers and sows. So, for better or for worse.

“Can we get through here a little faster?” Murphy complained, rubbing his nose with a knuckle as they stopped in front of another pen.

“That is a _massive_ pig.”

Murphy sighed, leaning against the fence and straightening up as his sneakers slipped forward on some loose straw. “Fascinating.”

“It’s like… as tall as you.”

“Well, it’s a good thing the pig and I aren’t slow-dancing,” said Murphy, sneering. “How long do you intend to make us stand around in this glorified animal bathroom?”

Bellamy chuckled, linking elbows with Murphy again, which they decided was easier while walking in crowded spaces involving lots of starting and stopping, even if it made Murphy’s face go hot and his arm tense. It was just awkward because… ugh. It was just awkward because Bellamy was _Bellamy._

“It’s not even that bad in here,” Bellamy said, which sounded dangerously like he was trying to talk Murphy out of leaving, but Murphy could smell the tendrils of fresh air overtaking the barn stench as they walked. “I worked at a zoo when I was younger, around maybe eleven until I was fifteen. Mostly feeding the animals outside, but sometimes I had to muck out the stables.” Bellamy clucked his tongue. “You wouldn't survive.”

Murphy shook his head, bewildered. “First of all, child labor laws. Second of all, a _zoo?”_

Bellamy hummed, weaving through the crowd as they breached the exit of the barn and the cool, shitless breeze washed over them. “My aunt owned this shabby little animal park. She gave me a few dollars every day that I helped out and I didn’t have anything better to do. She died a few years ago, so I figure there’s either been a change in ownership or the place is a mini-mall now.”

“Explains your expert handling of exotic snakes.”

“To a degree,” Bellamy agreed, sounding so-so about it. “Still lost it in the police chase… I feel kind of bad about that.”

“Never said you were the employee of the month.”

Bellamy scoffed a laugh, shoving Murphy to the side by their entwined elbows.

“…Did you have a little zookeeper outfit?”

“No, Murphy, I did not have a little zookeeper outfit.”

“Shame,” said Murphy, finally catching the scent of sweet bread and wondering if he could get out of this with his little secret intact. "Hey, you have the time?"

"7:20?" Bellamy answered, and Murphy sighed. It was starting soon, but there was no shaking Bellamy off now. Not that he wanted to.

"Would we happen to be near anything interesting? Maybe... involving food?" he asked, in his best please-believe-I-have-superpowers voice, rather than being called out for already knowing the answer.

“I mean, there’s some kind of cooking contest on our left. Looks like a checkered tablecloths, Edison bulbs and women named Margaret type of thing. Is that your scene?”

“No harm in checking it out," Murphy said carefully, already stepping that way. "We’ve already scammed every other joint in a five mile radius.”

"Good point," Bellamy agreed, and so they headed toward the sweet perfumes of fruit and baked goods that were wafting by, intermingling, and the 'scene' started to seem more like it was up Bellamy’s alley once they were reportedly underneath the tents, walking past rows of tables presenting endless original recipes and free samples. Murphy tried to seem disinterested and focus on Bellamy, but all he could hear were the unpleasantly familiar voices of the judges and contestants. Thank god he never talked to any of them, or they might’ve approached him by now. He might have had to make _small talk._ He shuddered to think.

“Coconut cake. White chocolate brownies. Cherry squares. Little tiny pineapple things. Roasted pears. Chocolate pudding. Ma’am, what’s this? Pavlova!” Bellamy narrated as they explored the tables, occasionally speaking with his mouth full. “You sure you don’t want anything? We’ve been walking around for a while. And it’s _free.”_

“Don’t have an appetite anymore,” Murphy explained, listening anxiously for stupid Deborah and her stupid fucking toast.

“Your loss. These tartlets are crazy.”

After a few more minutes of strolling around and describing complicated desserts, Bellamy suddenly came to an unusual sort of stop, lingering somewhere specific. “This pie isn’t labeled. It’s a mystery pie.”

“They probably know who made it. Maybe he just didn’t have time to label it.”

“He?”

“Or whoever.”

Then the ringing began, Deborah and her stupid little bell. “Some lady’s climbing onto the middle table.”

Murphy grumbled indistinctly.

“Wonderful ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Arkadia State Fair 28th annual Breads, Cookies, Cakes, Candies and— thanks to last year’s controversy— Other Kinds of Desserts Competition! The premiums of which have been sponsored by Cadogan Cane Sugar, to whom we are forever in debt.”

“Um, she’s doing a little bow. Some other people are also bowing,” Bellamy whispered.

“To the capitalist sugar entity?” asked Murphy out of the corner of his mouth.

“It appears so.”

Deborah raised her voice an unneeded few octaves higher as she geared up for her finale. “I know I normally thank each of our contestants individually and read a short yet personal bio for each of you, but unfortunately I had trouble finding childcare for this evening and Jamie’s not responding to his texts, so!” She clapped her hands, ringing her awful little bell again. “We had just over thirty entries this year, and all of your delicious recipes have been tasted and ranked by our panel of judges. Though, not _all_ delicious!” Deborah snickered, but the crowd response was lackluster at best. She cleared her throat. “It is my honor to announce that, with a gorgeous, classic blueberry pie, the winner of this year’s competition is… Mr. Hugh Jass!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” said Bellamy, a clear grin in his voice as the crowd applauded and cheered for Mr. Jass. A grin that disappeared when he next spoke, as Murphy peeled his arm away to approach the center table. “Murphy?”

Murphy ignored him, reaching out to accept the ribbon. Some people began to whisper and murmur about the blind teenager who just beat them all in the county fair baking competition, while others grumbled, likely recognizing Murphy. “Oh, you again,” Deborah sighed, slapping the ribbon into his hand. “Don’t bother giving a speech.”

“And take up little Jamie’s last few precious minutes on Earth? Wouldn’t dream of it. An honor as always, Deb.”

Deborah huffed, whipping the microphone cord and beginning to introduce the runner-ups. Murphy didn’t stay to hear who his competition was, extending a hand to where he thought Bellamy might have been lingering. Hesitantly, Bellamy locked their elbows again, and followed as Murphy dragged them through the crowd and out from under the suddenly stuffy tents.

“You’re Hugh Jass,” Bellamy inquired, though it was more of a statement. Murphy stifled his snort.

“I always make up a name on the sign-up sheet so they can't contact me, and if they put me in the paper nobody'll ever know. So. Ben Dover. Dixie Normous. Dill Doe. Mike Rotchburns. All 1st place ribbon holders. Makes a lovely leaderboard.”

“You’ve won that many times? By baking?”

“I don’t just bake. I’ll have you know Dill Doe won with some pretty jaw-dropping maple glazed ribs last year. Why do you sound so surprised, huh?”

“I just… wouldn’t have expected you to be interested in this sort of thing.”

“It’s not that weird. You have your balloon darts, I have my pies and shit.”

After a moment of silence, Bellamy laughed. “Okay then. Pies.”

“Pies,” Murphy agreed, running the smooth ribbon between his fingers.

He thought of the box underneath his bed, filled with ribbons and plaques and that little cupcake-shaped trophy, all of them etched with his mother’s name.  It was harder to cook without Wells or Jaha’s help, but if they had their caricatures and airbrushed t-shirts, this was _his_ weird personal thing. 

He was lucky, having Bellamy’s help picking out the ingredients. He'd made the entire process easier. Made it fun, instead of a mournful thing, struggling to carry on his mother’s legacy with no sight and a punnet of shitty blueberries.

Murphy snapped the aluminum button from the top of the ribbon and tugged his arm free, startling Bellamy. Murphy ignored him as Bellamy asked what was wrong, and groped a hand over the giant butterfly plush he'd been hanging onto all evening and then his chest to pin the button to his shirt.  It wasn’t as swift a move as he’d anticipated, and Murphy was so stressed out about his knuckles brushing against Bellamy’s warm, muscular chest that he pricked his finger twice, but he got the button pinned and patted it once, and returned to Bellamy’s side to carry on walking.

Bellamy hesitated before he spoke, clearing his throat. "What’s that for?”

“Being my grocery servant.” Murphy smiled good-naturedly as a form of thanks, and hoped Bellamy could see it. It would not happen again. “We did it together, so we should share the win.”

“Oh,” Bellamy said quietly, and the button clinked as he reached up and touched it. Murphy wanted so badly to put his head on Bellamy’s shoulder, and couldn’t for the life of him understand why. “Am I first first place, or second first place?” he asked.

“Second first, obviously.” Murphy scoffed. “I made the damn pie.”

“That’s fair,” Bellamy agreed, his voice still unusually soft, and wound their arms together a little tighter. “What next, Mr. Jass?”

“This is not what I had in mind when I said ‘something stupid.’”

Bellamy chuckled with obvious glee as the ride operator jerked on their seatbelts to make sure they were properly buckled, as if that would make a difference when the whole damn thing came down. “Can you think of something stupider?”

_“You?”_ Murphy snarled, as the ride’s gears began whirring, their feet slowly dragging over the grass until only the toes of his sneakers were touching the ground, and then none of him at all.

“Holy shit. Okay,” he gasped, feeling them turning, the machine moving steadily faster. “Are my shoes tied? Blake, are my shoes tied?”

“They're... mostly tied. If one falls off I'll help you find it."

"And when it lands on someone's head and I'm arrested for involuntary manslaughter and they start calling me the _Shoe Bomber?"_

"I'll help you then too. Everything’s fine.”

Murphy trapped a whimper in his mouth. “You’re insane. This is insane. I hate you.”

“It’ll be fun,” Bellamy promised, before his voice became mocking. “Do you need to hold my hand?”

If Bellamy’s voice weren’t so deep, the sound he made when Murphy flung his left arm out and snatched his hand in a vice grip might have been considered a squeak.

God. Murphy knew his hand was sweaty and didn’t care. Bellamy was rooting him to the earth, anchoring him to the world as the spinning grew faster, faster, faster. The wind whipped them both with pins and needles, sending a chill over Murphy. It felt like he was in the middle of nowhere, nothing left in the world but Bellamy's hand in his.

Murphy swallowed the lump in his throat, tilting his head back as he asked, “How high up are we?”

“…High,” Bellamy breathed, before he laughed a great, big, goofy laugh, wonderstruck. The sound brought a smile onto Murphy’s face against his will, and soon he was laughing too.

They were fast. They were flying. The world was massive and right then, they had it all to themselves.

Murphy felt _free._

“Think we can go back for some of that pie later?”

Murphy could have laughed until he cried. “Whatever the hell you want, Bellamy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HIIIIIII
> 
> another exceedingly cheesy chapter. i guess i'm trying to spoil you before i start doing mean shit. thanks so much for reading, let me know if you liked :-) 
> 
> thank you as always for all the lovely comments on the last chapter i could just kiss you people
> 
> come see me @slugcities on twitter we do be discussing <3


	7. eight nutribullets at once and going absolutely, irrevocably crazy

Murphy slapped his alarm clock and the beeping mercifully stopped.

“Today is Monday, November 11th. The time is 6:30 AM.”

He rolled over in bed and clutched his sheets to his chest, chasing the quickly fading remnants of a rare, pleasant dream. He remembered the smell of honeysuckle, and in clinging to that, lost his memory of anything else. He groaned as he dragged himself out of bed and shuffled to the closet.

“Hey Siri, check events.”

“You have one event today.”

“Read it,” Murphy sighed, rifling through his clothes, reading each braille tag on the hangers until he found the particular jeans he was looking for. He had been paying more attention to his outfits lately, and it honestly kind of pissed him off to try and match clothes. It meant nothing at all to him whether he was wearing navy and black at once, he just didn’t want Bellamy making any stupid comments about it. Not that he ever had. But… just in case he decided to start.

“Today at 3:45 PM: Dual meet at Santiago High.”

Right. Training had ended a few weeks ago, and they were onto their fourth meet now. Bellamy and Murphy kept blowing the other runners away, everyone from their team and every other school in the county too, coming out of each race so far in a position no less than third, often first. Apparently cross-country scoring was like golf, and having only seven points to their name was a good thing. A _great_ thing. They were great. Things were, well, great. 

Murphy almost couldn’t believe it, and expected something terrible would have to happen soon, really terrible, like a great meteor hurtling toward the house or the planet catching fire all over.

He guessed it spoke to how happy he was— that only the whole world going up in flames could even the score.

“Hey Siri,” he asked, changing into a pair of jeans that were bordering on too tight and a ragged sweatshirt of his dad’s that had probably seen better days. “Do I have any messages?”

“‘You have a new message from Bellamy. _‘I’ll walk with you to the activity bus before the meet if you think you can bear to be seen with me in public._ Face with rolling eyes emoji.’ Would you like to reply?”

Murphy laughed without meaning to, jerking his belt through his belt loops. “Yeah, I’ll reply.”

Bellamy stirred awake before his alarm went off, blinking against dandelion rays splitting into his bedroom between the blinds. He sat up and stretched, dark sheets pooling at his waist as he took his phone from the bedside table and checked his notifications. Murphy hadn’t responded the night previous, and Bellamy grinned at the new message on his dashboard.

_ **murph** _

_ It’s starting to feel like I’m the one doing community service.  _

Bellamy laughed, poring over the text a little longer before locking his phone and tossing it on the bed.

He shucked off his pajama pants and dug through his drawer, stepping into a pair of his many baggy jeans that he was learning to like again, seeing as Murphy never made vague insults about the state of them. Murphy didn’t care about stuff like that, for obvious reasons.

Bellamy had, however, become pickier about the texture of things, particularly the shirts he wore. He had never minded his stiff tees made of cheap cotton, but now often found himself rubbing the sleeves of his shirts between his fingers before choosing one. He saved the softer ones for days on which he expected to see Murphy, expected to link arms with him, expected to have his shoulder held.

He was paying less attention to whether his hair was neat and more to whether he smelled good. Less to whether his house was fancy enough and more to whether the floor was clear, in case Murphy ever came over. Less to whether he was bettering his community and getting his hours in, and more to whether Murphy would want to keep hanging out after all of this was over.

He wasn’t _changing_ for Murphy. It was just… compromise. That’s what friendship was all about.

Murphy squeezed into the tight bathroom he shared with Wells as his foster brother went through the sticky-sounding process of moisturizing his hair, and Murphy took more than one try to actually get a bead of toothpaste to stay on his toothbrush. 

“I know you’ll say no,” Wells began, still making awful squelching noises otherwise as Murphy brushed his teeth harder to try and drown them out, “but Clarke, Raven, and Finn and I are all going to this live music thing in the park, and I thought maybe you’d like to come. Since that’s kind of your thing.”

Murphy spat and rinsed slowly, thinking over his words with care. He didn’t want to spoil his secret, but he also didn’t want to hurt Wells’ feelings. Believe it or not.

He tried to let him down gently. “I, uh, already had plans with Blake this afternoon. But… thanks.”

“Okay,” Wells agreed, rising and drying his hands quietly, though Murphy was sure he had more to say. Wells took the comb gingerly from Murphy and got to work taming his hair. “It’s just—"  


“Here he goes.”

“—You’re hanging out a lot with Bellamy. _Only_ Bellamy.”

“So what?” Murphy snapped, jerking his head away. Wells was not discouraged, shuffling closer to continue combing Murphy’s hair down. It was kind of weird— Wells doing his hair most mornings— but Murphy apparently had a tendency to give himself a middle part. So this was just another one of those awkward things they had to pretend was normal so that Murphy could survive. Or survive without looking like Alfalfa, at the very least.

“So what happens when you two aren’t friends anymore? You just gonna be all alone again?”

“What, you think I’m not capable of keeping a friend?” Murphy sneered. “And anyway, I have Mbege.”

“Mbege,” snorted Wells. “Yeah, I know how much you _love_ hanging out with Mbege.”

“People can have friends for different reasons,” Murphy argued.

“What, Bellamy because you actually like being around him and Mbege because he always has cigarettes and doesn’t complain when you’re a dick? Guy’s got about as much personality as a bag of bricks.”

“There’s a lot of things you could do with a bag of bricks. Shut you up, for one. Besides, I haven’t smoked in a year now.”

“I noticed. I also noticed Mbege stopped coming around about the same time.”

Murphy shook his head, batting Wells’ hand away and tracing the counter until he was in front of the toilet. “What’s your point, Wells?” he grumbled.

“My point is that it wouldn’t hurt to broaden your social circle,” Wells explained. “And I’m trying to help you do that. It’s not like they’re lining up out the door. No offense.”

“Like your friends even want me around.”

“No, they don’t,” he agreed. “Not with the way you act at school. But maybe if they met the _real_ you—”  


“Forget it, alright, Wells?” snapped Murphy, feeling warm about the ears in a bad way. “I don’t want to hang out with your shitty rich kid friends, and I don’t want to go to your shitty concert, and when I lose my shitty guide I’ll be sure to come crying to you to tell you how right you were.”

“Your what?” Wells asked, and Murphy noticed his slip of the tongue too little too late.

“What?” repeated Murphy, feigning nonchalance, and then wondered how a single word could be so poorly delivered.

“You said, ‘my shitty guide.’”

“My shitty… guy,” Murphy floundered. "Like, my… friend. Guy.”

“Your friend guy,” repeated Wells.

“Yes. Friend guy, guy friend, you know,” said Murphy, unzipping his pants. “Now drop it. Forever. Got it?”

Wells hummed, twisting the doorknob and making to leave. “Don’t get mad at me when I turn out to be right and have to say I told you so.”

“Well, maybe this time you’ll be wrong,” Murphy said, shoving the toilet seat up with a clank. “Maybe _I’ll_ get to say I told you so.”

Wells sighed, and Murphy could have ground his own teeth to dust, as hard as he was trying not to blurt out anything awful and cruel in reply to Wells’ familiar, subtle condescension. 

“I hope so,” his foster brother murmured, and shut the door behind him at last, leaving Murphy blissfully alone.

“Jerk.”

Bellamy poked the snooze button on his sister’s alarm clock, jiggling Octavia’s shoulder until she mumbled and rolled onto her face, becoming a smear of dark hair against pink sheets.

“O. O. O. O. O. O,” Bellamy chanted, monotone, rocking her back and forth by the shoulder.

“I’m _up,_ ” she whined, still lying facedown, but at least she was speaking English.

Bellamy rolled his eyes and tossed a pair of leggings and a t-shirt into the ugly egg-shaped chair Octavia allowed to take up a third of her tiny bedroom, knocking a hand on the doorframe as he left to get her attention. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Mmm,” Octavia murmured, melting slowly off of the side of the mattress. “Cinnamon rolls, please.”

“Cinnamon rolls,” Bellamy harrumphed, dutifully making his way toward the kitchen nonetheless. “That’s not a real breakfast.”

“If we eat them in the morning, it’s breakfast.”

“A full sentence already,” Bellamy praised as the clumsy noises of Octavia trying to claw her way out of bed faded with distance. “We might actually make it to school on time today.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Octavia muttered, kicking her door shut.

The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee, which was strange, and Bellamy inspected the still-warm mug left on the table and the National Enquirer magazine underneath it, flipped open to a page about the gossip-worthy state of some poor celebrity’s perfectly fine bikini body.

Bellamy glanced up at the sound of the bathroom door creaking open, and his face creased with confusion as his mother shuffled into the kitchen in pajamas, a robe, and her furry slippers, taking her seat at the table and curling her mug close.

She always left the house for work at 5:30 AM. Bellamy glanced at the clock in the microwave to confirm that it was in fact 6:45, his frown deepening.

“Mom, what—?”

“Got laid off.”

His mom untucked the page of her magazine, now stained with a ring of coffee, from beneath her mug, and shook the magazine out with an unnervingly calm expression.

Bellamy stared. “Since when?”

“Couple weeks now.”

Bellamy balked. They had bills, groceries, gas, _rent._ All of _his_ money was going to the court fees. This could not be happening. Not right now. “Well, are you…” he began, shaking his head. What was he even asking? What could even be done? “What are we… should I—?”

“I’m looking for someplace new,” she interrupted, still staring at her magazine. “Don’t have a lot of skills, lot of education, you know. It’s hard.”

“Sure…” Bellamy agreed tentatively, wishing she’d look a little more worried. “Look, I can’t get another job, Mom. With the Speed-o-mart and school and the support group and the meets and training with Murphy… I- I don’t have time.”

“I’m not asking you to get another job,” she sighed, turning to a very educational-looking page about a Kardashian punching a stripper. “I never asked you to do anything.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw and wrenched the refrigerator open to search for the cinnamon roll dough, shuffling around without much seeing. “You need my help,” he muttered. “So I help.”

“You’re the son, I’m the mom,” she said, like she always did, even though it meant nothing when they got down to it. Without Bellamy’s income, they’d still have the house, but they’d be hungry. The lights would go out. There’d be no presents under the tree come Christmas time. They needed him, and she knew it.

“I understand what you were trying to do, all those times you got arrested. But your idea of _helping_ is drowning us, Bellamy. It doesn’t look good to have a juvenile delinquent for a son. The lawyer costs money, the court dates keep me out of work. You understand?”

Bellamy stared at her, clenching the cardboard roll of dough tight in his hands. His mom shook her head and gave a sad smile, tucking a strand of unwashed hair behind her ear. 

“Go to school. Work hard. Do what the judge asked. Be a good boy. You hear me? This is not your responsibility. Stay away from it.”

Bellamy turned away to hide the tears in his eyes, nodding his head as he leaned over the stove and cracked the dough roll against the edge of it. The cardboard unfurled, and the pale dough inside was, instead of speckled with cinnamon, full of blueberries.

He inspected the package and sighed. Octavia hated blueberry biscuits.

The meet had gone off without a hitch. Bellamy and Murphy had come in first place against their own teammates as well as the junior varsity runners of Santiago High, and were at present headed to their cars after a short bus ride back to their own school. Everything was great, and Murphy was flying high.

The only thing wrong was Bellamy.

Their win might have been attributed to how intensely Bellamy had run, tearing through the three-mile course like an animal and forcing Murphy to shift his happy-go-lucky mood into a matching ferocity. Other than breathlessly giving out directions, Bellamy hadn’t spoken much. Even now, as they trudged toward Bellamy’s car, he was silent.

“You were actually fast this time,” Murphy complimented, teasing, in an attempt to break Bellamy out of whatever funk he was in.

But Bellamy didn’t bite, only grunting his assent to humor Murphy. Murphy was not going to pout, but was admittedly disappointed and borderline grumpy as they stepped onto the pavement of the parking lot, arms wound tight together for convenience regardless of Bellamy’s mood. What the hell was his problem?

Murphy had lifted his cane and was patting down sweaty hair that had dried in forty different directions when Ontari’s stupid voice passed by, saying, “Smile, you two. You just beat ten of Santiago High’s finest sloths.”

“And eleven of Franco’s,” Murphy retorted, when it was obvious that Bellamy wasn’t in the mood to fire back. “What’d you come in, last? Didn’t hear you squawking for a long time after we finished.”

“I had shin splints!” Ontari shouted. “I’m _recovering!”_

Murphy only shook his head, returning his cane’s tip to the pavement and feeling pleased when it sounded like it had knocked a rock in her direction as she walked parallel to them, her steps faltering as she stumbled over it. He was even more pleased, albeit surprised, when Princess’ voice chimed in from a ways away. “You had shin splints when we were fourteen, Ontari. Pretty sure you’ve recovered.”

“My personal health is really none of your business, is it, Coach Junior?” she snapped, unlocking a car and slamming the door as Murphy snickered. 

“She’s just jealous of the men of the hour,” Clarke said brightly as Ontari’s car ripped out of the parking lot, and Murphy sighed as Bellamy turned at the same time as Murphy, the both of them steering toward Clarke’s welcoming kindness as if against their collective will. It was a trap.

“You and Lexa weren’t far behind. Nice going,” Bellamy complimented, and Murphy tried not to bristle at Clarke getting more words out of him in under a minute than Murphy had all day.

“Aw, thanks,” she said sweetly, her voice coming from a greater height than usual and over the sound of something knocking arrhythmically against the siding of a vehicle. Murphy gathered she must have been sitting on the laid-out bed of someone’s truck, swinging her legs. “What’s a couple of eight-pointers talking to two lowly twenty-pointers like us, anyway?”

“I don’t think these are phrases people use,” Murphy said.

“It’s cross-country lingo,” argued Clarke.

“I don’t think it is.”

“Hunters refer to bucks by the number of points on their antlers,” Lexa interjected unhelpfully from the same height as Clarke, startling Murphy.

“You should announce yourself,” Bellamy said, not unkindly. “It spooks Murphy.”

“It does spook Murphy,” he agreed, warming a bit at Bellamy, well, acknowledging his existence. “And we’re human beings, not deer, so.”

“Deer are easily spooked as well,” Lexa added, a strange little lilt of humor to her voice. Murphy hadn’t spoken to her much, but knew this to be rare. He understood why— her jokes were weird.

“Lexa’s really into the woods,” explained Clarke, audibly smiling.

“Just… the woods?” asked Murphy. “Like, looking at the woods? Or studying the woods? Or doing stuff in the woods?”

“I just like the woods,” Lexa said, enigmatically.

“She knows tons of facts about them. I think it’s cool,” Clarke said, and sounded shockingly genuine. Not that Clarke being genuine was shocking, but that anyone would genuinely give a shit about random fun facts on wild mushrooms and coniferous trees. _That_ frightened Murphy to his core.

“We’ve been going to my favorite wooded areas so that Clarke can paint them,” said Lexa. “They’re really beautiful. The paintings.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen better,” Murphy teased, and grinned at Clarke’s chime of laughter and Lexa’s quiet snicker. The Princess wasn’t so bad, after all. He was actually starting to like her. Her weird girlfriend, too.

‘Girlfriend,’ Murphy thought. He’d just assumed, since they seemed to always be together after school despite vastly different friend groups. The way they talked about each other, like the other was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Are you guys a thing?” Bellamy asked suddenly, sounding tired and trodden enough to forget his usual subtlety and manners, but not mocking. Murphy raised his brows, surprised by their similar trains of thought.

“Um, I don’t-?” Clarke began, trailing off with an awkward little laugh that almost made Murphy pity her.

“What sort of thing?” Lexa asked, oblivious.

“It’s okay,” Bellamy said, a bit of amusement creeping into his voice. “Forget I asked.”

“We’re just hanging out. Doing… Friend. Stuff,” explained Clarke. “Normal.”

“Normal,” Bellamy agreed, and nudged Murphy with their arms in a way that Murphy wasn’t sure was purposeful or accidental. He smiled either way. Smiled just in case.

He had never smiled for anyone else’s sake, before Bellamy.

“You and Murphy. Are _you_ a ‘thing?'” Lexa asked, understanding now and sounding like she was doing it just to get back at Bellamy for not explaining himself. “You’re quite close. You run together, you’re always at lunch together, driving one another around…”

“Murphy doesn’t have his license,” Bellamy argued.

“Yet,” Murphy interjected.

“Attached at the elbow, one might say,” Clarke tacked on, obviously grinning, and Murphy yanked his arm out of the crook of Bellamy’s.

“It’s for convenience,” Murphy muttered, scratching his arm which prickled with cold, now. “I’m too acquired a taste for a voluntary guide and he legally has to help me with shit. It’s… all for convenience.”

Bellamy was silent, and Murphy shifted, huffing as he thought about how that sounded. How that might have— ugh— made Bellamy feel bad.

“We’re friends, alright?” he amended. “Can’t two guys just hang out without everyone making it weird?”

“Sure,” Clarke agreed. “Two guys hanging out. What do you think, Lex?”

“I don’t see why not,” confirmed Lexa, kicking her feet against the truck bumper. “But I think you two would be cute together. Just for the record. We’ve discussed it.”

“Well, we agreed we weren’t going to mention that we’d discussed it, but, yes, we’ve discussed it.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

Murphy was not often struck speechless, but found that when he opened his mouth to reply to that, he’d thought of nothing to say. Bellamy clearly didn’t plan on speaking for either of them, stewing beneath his storm cloud. Murphy closed his mouth, burning up. What did someone even say to that? 'Yes, we’d be great together?’ He couldn’t just say that. He wasn’t even sure he thought that. ‘No, I’d never be into him like that.’ That was cruel, and Bellamy was clearly already feeling down. He wasn’t sure it was true, either.

“Not sure I’m Blake’s type,” Murphy said at last, smiling and hoping it looked real. “Those dashing good looks I’ve heard all about would just go to waste.”

Bellamy was quiet, and Murphy’s smile faltered in the silence. Clarke eventually saved him with a little laugh, her shoes scuffing against the pavement as she hopped down from the truck bed. “Well, we better get going if we want to get out to our painting spot before sunset. Great job today, guys! Go Panthers!” she cheered, closing the truck door behind her as Lexa shut the other, revving the engine.

“She’s a bit of a dork, huh,” Murphy murmured fondly as the truck pulled out of the lot, the grumble of the engine fading slowly away.

For a moment Murphy thought Bellamy might have left, but then he huffed a small laugh and gently linked their arms again. “A bit.”

Soon they were in Bellamy’s wheezing old car, rumbling down the road with the radio on, but Murphy still felt the silence like a wall between them.

“Any wild plans for the evening?” he asked tentatively, turning his head toward the wind whipping in from the rolled-down window. He didn’t particularly want to go home, didn’t feel like facing Wells, hearing more of his thesis about Murphy’s many shortcomings.

“Just… a thing,” Bellamy grunted, stopping at an intersection.

“Riveting.”

“It’s just a meeting thing. Don’t worry about it. It’s boring.”

“I’m not worrying about it.”

“Okay.”

Murphy pursed his lips. “Can I come?”  


“Damn it, Murphy,” Bellamy sighed, putting the car in gear and rolling on. Murphy’s smile was easy to manage this time.

The community center was a bright, wide open room glittering with white tile and fluorescent lights, trimmed along the walls with folding tables of snacks and scattered with uninviting, collapsable metal chairs posed in neat rows. There was a water cooler with little cone-shaped paper cups, and Bellamy had always liked those, for some reason. He also wanted to avoid talking to anyone milling about before the meeting, and dragged Murphy along to the snack table, who went without argument.

He filled a cone and drank, and filled another and drank, putting off answering Murphy’s hesitant but increasingly frustrated questions about the room and the meeting. It wasn’t fair to leave him in the dark, but Bellamy wasn’t sure he would have wanted Murphy here on a good day, let alone a day like this.

It wasn’t so much the meeting screwing up his afternoon as it was his shitty morning leaking into every crevice of anything that could have lifted his mood, like a perfect test score in history or winning the race at Santiago High or even chatting with the Princess, strangely enough.

But despite his dark mood, Bellamy laughed as Murphy reached out to feel his surroundings and stuck his finger right into the icing of a cheerfully pink cupcake.

Most of all, he hated that he’d been taking his frustrations out on him, unable to act like his usual self but unwilling to explain why, and Bellamy didn’t imagine the boy often went to much trouble trying to cheer anyone up. 

He sighed, trapping the rim of his paper cone between his teeth and unfolding a patterned napkin from the table to wipe off Murphy’s finger, who had been standing there and holding it dumbly in front of him like he wasn’t sure whether or not to lick it.

“I think you should probably eat that cupcake. Finder’s keepers and all.”

Murphy squinted, accepting the cupcake as Bellamy turned his palm over and placed the treat in it. “Are we at a birthday party?”

“I wish,” Bellamy grumbled, crumpling his water cup and tossing it into the trash bin beside the table as the group leader stepped up to the podium and attendees began finding seats, Murphy and Bellamy among them.

He tried not to be embarrassed as Murphy sat to his left and listened to the group leader’s introduction, realization dawning on his face ever-so-subtly as he methodically licked away at the swirl of icing on his cupcake. Murphy knew what he’d done and didn’t mind. In fact, that night outside of Murphy’s house, he’d said Bellamy's robberies were _cool._

Bellamy didn’t feel very cool as attendees stepped to the podium and bore their souls to a bunch of strangers in a barren community center under a flickering panel of fluorescent light, the occasional fly darting by to side-eye Murphy’s cupcake. Some were brief and bored, some burst into tears over their crimes tearing their families apart, some just liked the sound of their own voices, droning on and on about their thieving escapades.

It was after one such autobiography that the group leader took the podium again, inviting newcomers to speak. Bellamy had seen several glances cast his way already, and knew there probably wasn’t putting it off for long. Maybe he could speak just this once, get it over with, and then they’d leave him alone for the gatherings to come. There was little chance he’d be pouring out his heart at all, let alone weekly.

Just as anxiety began to bubble up in his gut as he prepared himself for court-ordered self-flagellation before the public, Murphy sighed and grabbed his cane, making a racket as he beat all the chairs on either side of him to leave the aisle.

Bellamy watched, startled, as Murphy clumsily made his way toward the podium, accepting whispered directions from a girl in the front row who couldn’t stop stealing her classmates’ cellphones. She seemed nice.

Murphy folded his arms over the podium and cleared his throat. “Hi, I’m Murphy, and I can’t stop stealing cookware.”

“Hi, Murphy,” the group intoned.

“I have a particular fondness for infomercial-type cookware. Gimmicky sorts, like from Bed Bath and Beyond. I once nabbed eight NutriBullets from there. Not all at once; who would ever need eight NutriBullets at once? Anyway, it’s all piling up in the living room. My fiancé moved out. Less to do with the hoarding than it was his lack of cooperation in smuggling a tofu press. Totally lost my temper. Went berserk honestly. How hard is it to just put the thing under your shirt?” Murphy took a deep breath. “I’ll be taking questions now.”

They didn’t normally do questions. Bellamy stared with his mouth hanging open as the iPhone burglar in the front row tentatively raised her hand.

“I won’t be calling on hands,” Murphy explained, blinking as he stared out over their heads. “For obvious reasons.” The girl slumped slightly.

“Do you cook?” she asked quietly.

“You the girl in the front row, left side?” The girl confirmed. “You make many phone calls?” he asked, and she froze for a moment, before letting out a stuttering little laugh.

Bellamy felt like he must have been dreaming, as the other attendees fired off amused questions about Murphy’s strange, made-up habits, and laughed and laughed and laughed as he turned their very serious meeting into his stage, teasing them all and talking out of his ass.

When the group leader called time, he approached the podium with a confused half of a smile on his face, like he wasn’t sure whether what Murphy had done was allowed or to be encouraged, but had liked it well enough. Murphy graciously took his leave, wandering back toward their aisle in the sea of cheap metal chairs and retrieving what was little more than a slobbery muffin now, not once addressing Bellamy, who was still a bit breathless from laughter.

They signed out and left the community center quietly, and stood beneath the flagpole outside as Murphy shaved another cupcake, blue now, with his tongue.

“John Murphy,” Bellamy said, still not quite sure what had happened in there, “You are something else altogether.”

“I’m having sugarplum dreams of a lucrative career in Hollywood,” he said seriously, and licked a long stripe of icing away.

“Glad to see you’re staying humble.”

Murphy snickered, and Bellamy sighed at the sight of him. He’d taken a day that Bellamy would have allowed to be dreadful, and instead he’d made Bellamy laugh until his ribs ached.

Something from Murphy’s little backstory had stood out to him, sitting perched at the forefront of his mind much in the way that what Lexa Woods had said about them in the parking lot was sitting there, _“You two would be cute together,”_ waiting patiently to be obsessed over.

“Couldn’t help but notice your fiancé was, um, distinctly male. Plot reasons?"

“I may be one of the greats, Blake, but there are certain roles even I can’t pull off," he said haughtily, but paused in his ministrations with the cupcake, listening carefully for Bellamy's reaction.

Bellamy, who only grinned. “On account of the Avril Lavigne ringtone.”

Murphy calmed, and didn’t look bashful in the slightest at that, lips quirking in a grin that Bellamy’s eyes chased. “Otherwise I’m quite discreet.”

“So you’re a gay, blind orphan.”

Murphy shrugged. “Could be worse. I could have a terrible addiction to stealing kitchen utensils.”

And Bellamy... Bellamy liked him so much. He didn't know when it had happened or how, but he knew it was true. He wanted to be like Murphy; spontaneous and funny and real. He wanted to spend every second with him. He wanted to mean more to him. He wanted.

“Go out with me,” he blurted, like he had blurted so many things that day, and went a deep, dark red all over as Murphy stilled.

He hadn’t thought that through at all.

It was just this: that Murphy was standing there in his stupid skinny jeans that made his legs look spindly, and that old college sweatshirt that covered his hands down to the second knuckle, his sneakers untied and laces fraying, and his dumb hair fluttering about in the autumn breeze, and his tongue sticking out of his mouth, turned completely purple.

It was just that Bellamy had been prepared to have an awful day. An awful year. And Murphy had given him refuge; had stayed by his side; had made him laugh until his ribs ached.

“Go out with me,” he said again, no quieter than the first time, no surer or more unsure. "Food. We could get food. Somewhere. Sometime." He swallowed. "Together."

Murphy said nothing for a long while. Then, eventually, he whispered, “Alright.”

“Okay,” Bellamy replied, whispering too.

They were all but silent until Bellamy had dropped Murphy off at his house again, and he waited until Murphy had shut his front door before he arched up in his seat and punched the roof of his car, laughing, bewildered and hysterical and full with a strange sort of joy.

Bellamy didn’t have to wonder what had just happened. He knew what had happened.

John Murphy had gone and made him absolutely, irrevocably crazy.

Bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh GOD i took forever again im sorry... i keep getting distracted from this fic because i think it is kind of bad... i spent some of my procrastination time writing a jasper & murphy ring fic if you're interested in that sort of content... ? anyway very sorry. no promises that it won't happen again SDJFKS
> 
> thanks a bunch for reading and let me know what u thought, if ? you had any thoughts ?
> 
> NOTE ON 12/3/2020: hi! i've been getting some comments asking when i plan to update and i just wanted to let you know that i do hope to eventually finish this fic and haven't forgotten about it, i've just been stuck on this story for a long while and haven't been in the right mood or headspace to write much of anything recently. i'll work on it when it feels right. thank you for being excited and i'm glad you like the story :)


	8. goddamn gay guinea pigs and general sexual hullabaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> could a depressed person do THIS? *hands you 9-month-late update*

Well, you couldn’t fault them for trying.

Bellamy did everything right. He got them a table at some sticky illegitimate Tex-Mex joint that Murphy imagined was probably trying very hard to masquerade as a real restaurant; someplace they could afford but that still gave the illusion of being nice. He held doors open for Murphy, and pulled out his chair, and touched the small of his back, and was a good sport when Murphy relentlessly teased everything gentlemanly that he did. He ordered chicken strips for Murphy without asking, and was right.

It wasn’t doomed. It didn’t have to be. It could’ve even been perfect. It was just that Murphy kind of had a penchant for dooming things.

“I hope the food comes soon,” said Bellamy, back when things were still going splendidly and they were both doing a bang-up job of feigning normalcy. “I’m getting kinda hangry.”

Murphy sucked on a lemon wedge and tried to focus on his voice, to cut out the chatter and the mariachi music bumping incessantly out of overhead speakers. 

“Hangry?” he repeated, incredulous.

“Like, hungry and angry," explained Bellamy.

“I know what ‘hangry’ means. I just didn’t expect for you to be possessed by a time-traveling tween from 2012.”

“It’s in the Oxford Dictionary.”

“There are a lot of words in the Oxford Dictionary. Like, ‘wine-o-clock’ and ‘awesomesauce.’ Doesn’t mean you should use them,” said Murphy.

“That’s not very awesomesauce of you," Bellamy replied.

Murphy’s answering grin was yanked into a cringe as a particularly loud clash of dishes sounded from the nearby kitchen. His chair wobbled on uneven legs each time he flinched. He knew it hadn’t made much— if any— difference at all, but he felt every time like he didn’t know where anything on the table was anymore, and was liable to slap the queso.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” answered Murphy, waving a hand and shaking himself off. “How’s work?”

“Same old. Arguing with rabid packs of thirteen-year-olds about whether they can buy Four Lokos. Apparently by denying them resources I’m abusing my power as an authority figure and infringing on their rights as individuals. It’s starting to go over my head, to be honest.”

“Braver than the marines,” appraised Murphy, bravely holding up his glass and hoping Bellamy was not leaning forward nor looking at something more interesting.

Bellamy clicked their drinks together. “I called in sick today, but tomorrow I’m back in the fighting pit.”

Murphy started. “You had work.”

“I did. Now I have an enchilada.”  


“But you aren’t sick.”

“No, Murphy. It’s called lying.” He was audibly grinning when he spoke next. “I hope you won’t think too badly of me.”

“Shut up.” Murphy shook his head. “You wasted a sick day just to hang out with me? Bellamy, you need the money.”  


“No offense, Murphy, but I’m aware.” Bellamy paused, the ice in his drink tinkling like he was stirring his straw around. “I was kind of hoping this was a little more than ‘hanging out’ to you too.”

He was going to agree, maybe, when a wave of grease stench wafted in from the kitchen’s swinging door, and pots and pans chimed against metal countertops again, clattering like they’d been released from a tornado.

“‘More’ as in what, exactly?” Murphy laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His chair tilted onto its left legs. “Friends with benefits? _Boyfriends?_ Do you even like guys, or were you just bored?”

A fajita came out of the kitchen, hissing. A couple was complaining somewhere to their right, asking for a refund on account of a “preservative taste,” although they had apparently eaten the entirety of both their meals. 

Bellamy sounded like he’d been kicked. “That’s not fair.”

Murphy kept going, grinding his teeth between sentences. “You’re already using me as a get-out-of-jail-free card, is it such a far stretch to think you’d use me as a sexuality experiment? I’m not your goddamn gay guinea pig.”  


“I have never called you a gay guinea pig.”

“It’s a figure of speech—“

“It’s not.”  


“—and you’ve never shown interest in me before this week, when you were obviously upset and not in your right mind. I’m not gonna get my heart broken over a split-second impulse.”

“How would you know if I’ve shown interest? You can’t see the way I look at you, and it wasn’t like I could just say what I was thinking!”

Murphy sneered. “Free country. Why not?”

The table shuddered as Bellamy lurched forward in his seat. “I never knew how you’d respond, because you’re a _dick!”_

At that point, the restaurant staff began to sing a cheery rendition of the happy birthday song to a guest. One of them had a kazoo. _“Happy birthday to you—!”_

“You’re just like everyone else!” Murphy yelled, gripping his cane in his lap. “Get close to the stray, try to fix me, throw me out when you realize I bite! Keep your hands to yourself next time, how about that?!”

_“—Happy birthday to you—!”_

“You’re wrong, Murphy! I actually fucking like you, believe it or not! But I see I was right to keep it to myself, since this was clearly a big mistake!”

_“—Happy birthday dear Greg—!”_  


“Screw you, Blake. Go find another charity case to save your ass.” Murphy wrestled his wallet out of his pocket and threw some crumpled bills on the table.

“Seriously?” Bellamy laughed, breathless. “All because I asked you on a date? You’re unbelievable.”

Murphy swung his arms out wide and opened his mouth to fire back, then all at once there was the sound of Bellamy’s glass hitting the table, ice skittering across the tablecloth and tinkling onto the floor, and Murphy’s front was splashed with soda. Murphy jumped up from his seat and instantly crashed into a waiter behind him, whose platter collapsed, its dishes splitting into a hundred chunks on the restaurant’s tile, its food spilling all down the back of Murphy’s jeans.

His life was a goddamn cartoon.

He took a breath. Then— as people congregated to clean up Murphy’s mess, like always— he sat back down in his squelching chair, and let himself be soaked by Bellamy’s order of an enchilada and a Coke.

_“—Happy birthday to you.”_

He couldn’t find his key in the dark.

Bellamy tried them all, jammed them in upside-down, turned them the wrong way in the lock, missed it altogether.

He always turned the porch light on for his mother and his sister. Why did no one ever turn the damn porch light on for him?

After one last failure, Bellamy chucked his keyring across the yard. He didn’t care if a dog ate it. He didn't care if tomorrow's rain washed it away. He didn’t care if it got sucked up into the lawnmower. He didn’t care if the whole world got sucked up into the lawnmower.

He slumped down at the base of the front door and stared up at the stars a minute, knocking his skull against the chipped wood with every twisting glint of a sun that was dying particularly brightly, exploding fantastically in all the ways that Bellamy was not. Because all that had gone wrong was an embarrassing attempt at a gay Tex-Mex date with his cross-country partner and he was not within his right to feel so melodramatic about it, to explode or die or tumble off any cliffs about it.

After some amount of time, who cared how long, the door swung open at his back, light spilling out into the yard as Bellamy spilled into the house.

With his feet on concrete and his head on carpet, Bellamy stared up at his upside-down mother; her topsy-turvy frown and all the tired lines of her face.

“I take it you didn’t go to work.”

“I was sick.”

“Yeah,” said his mother, blandly. “Keep it up.”

Bellamy rolled over and sat on his knees in the doorway. “Keep what up?”

“The running around. The lying. Wasting opportunities; wasting your time, wasting mine. Keep it up, Bellamy.”

“I can’t take a day off?”

“I just lost my job, and you thought now was the time to start playing hooky?”

Disdainfully, Bellamy laughed, casting his eyes away. “I thought it _‘wasn’t my responsibility.’_ ”

“Don’t play dumb, and don’t be disrespectful. I expect you to meet the _bare minimum_ requirements of being responsible. Go to school, go to work. All I asked is that you not use your family as an excuse to get into trouble.”

Quiet, muffled, Bellamy did the rare thing and defended himself. “I’m not getting into trouble.”

“Oh, you’re not?” snapped his mother. “You want me to believe this isn’t like every other time? Then what was so pressing that you’d throw everything to the wind?”

“I went on a date,” murmured Bellamy.

She shook her head, lip curled. “Speak up.”  


Bellamy tore to his feet. “I went on a date!”

His mother’s face filled with confusion, first. Then surprise. Then joy. Finally, sadness. She reached out and gathered him slowly, peeling him in by the sleeves of his t-shirt until he was trapped in her arms.

“What happened?”

Determined to not cry, Bellamy stared resolutely over his mother’s shoulder into the house. Hard eyes roved over the off-white carpet and the old, green suede couches, the television’s lights casting pomegranate blooms on the den’s dusky rose walls.

For weeks he hadn’t wanted to come home. For years, maybe. Now, it seemed suddenly like the only safe place on Earth.

“It went bad,” he croaked.

His mother stroked his hair. “Bad dates happen, honey. You’ve been on plenty before. Never seen you worked up like this.”  


Bellamy swallowed. “This was different. I really liked him. I’m sorry if that’s—” His voice broke, and he fell silent.

His mother pulled back to look at him, eyes roving over his clenched jaw and his steely eyes. “Oh, sweetheart.” She tugged him in close again, squeezing him tight as he blinked his tears away.

She held him a while longer, letting moths fly into the house. Then she framed his face in her hands.

“First, and most of all, I want you to know that after one of your children nearly ends up in juvie and the other has an on-and-off-again boyfriend with twenty tattoos, that very little will surprise you. No to mention that you have about a million posters of young Russell Crowe in your room, and I figured it wasn’t just because you love _Gladiator._ ”

To Bellamy’s horror the first of his tears spilled over. “It’s my favorite movie.”

“I know, honey. You’ve made it incredibly hard not to notice.”

They shared a smile, and his mother sobered again. “I know I’m hard on you, Bellamy, and that I let myself take my stress out on you sometimes, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know you’ve only ever wanted to help, and I know you’ve given up a normal childhood to do it. But I hope you know I will always, _always_ take you as you come, and that I will love you until the day I die, and then some.”

She wiped his tears away with her thumb, and gave a watery smile herself.

“I want you to know this, too: that everything is so much worse when you’re a teenager. Every bad thing feels like its own little apocalypse. It won’t always feel like that, it won’t even feel like that a few days from now, and I promise you that nothing is ever truly ruined.”

She held him at arm’s length, tilting her chin up. “Now, never go to sleep unhappy; you’ll grind your teeth. Go talk to Murphy.”

Bellamy nodded, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm. He slid off his shoes on the concrete slab of a porch and toed gingerly into the den, and was halfway down the dark hall when he thought to call out, “Mom? How’d you know I was talking about Murphy?”

She laughed, sweet and soft and just the right amount of condescending that was owed to moms. “Honey, I’d have to be blind not to notice.”

Bellamy grinned, something bashful but joyous to know that she’d been paying attention to him all along, perhaps better than he himself had been. That grin stayed on his face all the way to his room, and only until then.

Octavia was sat on his bed, typing away on the phone he’d left at home.

“What the hell, O? Give me that!” He lunged for the phone and tumbled onto the bed as she yanked it swiftly out of his path, turning her back to him and bringing the screen closer to her face.

Sound came out of the phone, staticky and unclear. Octavia laughed, bending forward and hunching over it as Bellamy reached over her shoulder and made grabby hands for it.

“This is a complete invasion of privacy. Who are you even talking to?”

“Who do you think, dummy?” She showed him the screen. The tiny contact picture of Murphy grinning and holding up his cross-country number felt abruptly like looking at a picture of a dead person. That deep, whopping sense of regret — and longing— sank like a stone in Bellamy’s gut. It was quickly muddled by embarrassment.

“Were you eavesdropping?!”  


“Of course, but he’s also the only one who ever texts you.” She rolled her eyes and tossed him his phone.

At the top of the screen was a message in blue that read, _“he’s really upset. i didn’t think i would have to give you the shovel talk.”_

Murphy responded in gray, speech-to-text proper, _“I fucked up. I got overwhelmed. I think I ruined it.”_

Octavia replied _, “he’s bellamy. he’d forgive anyone. but you owe him.”_ It was punctuated with the pile of shit emoji.

Murphy’s next reply came a little slower than the others. _“Show him this,”_ Murphy answered. _“Maybe laughing at my misery will be a good start.”_

It was a video filmed vertically, with a thumb covering a third of the screen. He could clearly hear Principal Jaha asking if the phone was on. In the low-lit frame stood Wells and Murphy, in their yard at the tail end of sunset.

Murphy was wearing the outfit he’d worn to dinner— a gray hoodie and skinny jeans. Except his clothes were covered in dark soda and the remnants of an enchilada that was probably going to be delicious, the same substances smeared now on the passenger seat of Bellamy’s car from the world's most pathetically miserable ride home.

“This doesn’t seem necessary,” said Wells, gripping a garden hose. “Just let me put them in the washer.”

“Chunks,” replied Murphy, gesturing at all of himself. “I have chunks.”

“Do you want your feet in the video?” asked Jaha.

“Why would I not—?” Murphy shook his head. "Wells, just do it.”

“Remember, when this becomes an eat or be eaten situation: you asked for this and I was barely a consenting party."  


The hose blasted to life, pelting Murphy with a never-ending spray of cold water. Wells cringed unhappily as he washed Murphy like a concrete patio. The haunting of Bellamy’s Coke began fading, and enchilada chunks leapt off of his clothes and for all Bellamy knew, toddled off to the nearest Chili’s for repurposing.

Murphy looked for all the world like a sad, wet dog, his hair plastered to his forehead. Jaha just barely managed to zoom in on his very sad, dripping face.

“Bellamy, I’m sorry. I’m a chronic jerk.”

“What did you even _do?”_ Wells pleaded.

“I rolled around in his enchilada and ruined Greg's birthday,” answered Murphy, pulling off a perfect eye-roll with just his voice. “And I hope he can forgive me, because he’s the only real friend I’ve ever had. So I’m gonna get my shit together. I’m gonna be better. …Happy?”

Wells’ raised finger entered the edge of the frame. “You should probably start with not ending all your apologies with, ‘happy?’”

Murphy turned from the camera and opened his mouth in a snarl, before quickly shutting it. “Thank you for that advice, Wells. It was very helpful, despite being unrequested.”

“I felt that that was passive-aggressive,” interjected Jaha.

“Me too,” agreed Wells, enjoying himself.

“Alright, that’s enough. You’re taking advantage.” Murphy swatted vaguely in the direction of the camera. “Turn that shit off!”

“Language!” Jaha cried, just before the phone tumbled to the ground and the video went dark. Bellamy didn’t realize he’d been smiling all along until he saw his face reflected in the black.

“Not the worst apology I’ve seen. Arguably better than pebbles and a boombox,” appraised Octavia, hands in her lap. “You know you don’t have to accept it, though. If he’s a lot to deal with, if he hurts your feelings, you don’t… you know? It shouldn’t be hard to be friends with someone.”

Bellamy knitted his brows. “If I say something cheesy, you promise not to laugh?”

“I generally refrain from lying,” said Octavia, perking up.

He turned to her, his heartbeat easing. “I think he’s worth the trouble.”

Octavia slowly smiled, and then remembered to stick her finger down her throat and gag.

“Shut up,” said Bellamy, falling back onto the pillow behind her, grinning.

With that, Octavia stood and wandered along the walls of Bellamy’s room, absently tracing a fingertip along the paper crease cutting through his _3:10 to Yuma_ poster, which was admittedly just a 24 by 36 sepia print of a cowboy’s ass and a train heading toward his crotch.

“So, as much as I’d love to let this be one of those weird sitcom queerbait friendships, I think I have to ask for it straight, er, so to speak. Are you two like… y’know…” She waved her hand around in the air, the universal sign for romantic hoo-ha and general sexual hullabaloo.

Bellamy’s eyes fell to his phone, lying quiet on the blue bedcovers. “No,” he answered, giving a sorry sort of smile. “Just friends; end of story.”

His sister looked at him strangely, holding his Athens snow globe in her hands. Snowflakes tinkled down on the Parthenon, broken and breathtaking, trapped behind glass, just like everything else Bellamy had ever wanted in the world.

“You know you can always talk to me, right?” Octavia said gently, drawing his eyes up to hers. “I mean, if you’re going around getting boys to pressure wash themselves, I refuse to miss out on that.”

Bellamy grinned, watching with a lonely wish and a simultaneous desire to cry it out in a dark room as she replaced the snow globe on his shelf and made her way to the door. He decided to let her go; to get his shit together. “Thanks, O.”

“Anytime, big brother.”

When the door had closed and it was Bellamy all alone, he turned his head on his pillow and looked to where his curtains fluttered on either side of his desk, the window it was pressed against still cracked to let the smell of honeysuckle waft in.

Between the curtains, on the desk, sat four books: _Living and Learning with Visually Impaired Children, What Every Blind Person Needs You to Know,_ Ray Charles’ autobiography— which Murphy probably would’ve thought was funny, for some reason— and _Braille for the Sighted (Beginners)._

Beside the books sat a seven-key braille typewriter, forest green.  He’d stolen it, because some things were worth the trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sincerely apologize for the fact that millions of human children were conceived and born within the amount of time it took me to get out of my funk with this chapter. and then it was still a shockingly unimpressive chapter. writer's block is weird but hopefully i'll get back into my groove :')
> 
> if anyone's still with me at this point, please let me know... this was a very "hey guys, remember me?" thing to do, i sorry. and also thank you so much. bestows upon you an honorary imaginary badge of loyalty. i very much appreciate all the comments on the last chapter and those of you that gently expressed a desire for more of the story ♡
> 
> i know i used to say come chat with me on twitter but i have retired from t100 twitter and am living out the rest of my days in a private grotto, so i guess see you in the comments and otherwise your dreams


	9. secret codes and a propensity for shenanigans

Murphy had been groping the same piece of paper for an hour. The bottom left corner was wrinkled now, folded faintly into jagged lines. It was the stupidest, most wonderful thing he’d ever held in his hands.

Mrs. Cartwig was belly-to-board as usual, writing out the guidelines for their upcoming argumentative paper. Murphy’s plan had been to pretend to be a proponent for animal testing— he even had a whole bit about rabbits having all the right equipment for a smokey eye— but the trips between class and the guidance counselor were gradually ramping up from freebie hall passes to full-on cardio. People just didn’t get satire anymore.

Besides, his heart wasn’t in it. It was only the first day back at school since he went Super Saiyan on Bellamy in the middle of an On the Border. He was all out of wrath for a month, at least, and now thought mainly about things like charity, and adoption fairs, and holiday parades where you cheer for the tuba player from the local middle school and he’s not doing that good of a job but by god he must be trying his best.

And about Bellamy, mostly.

He thought about watching a movie with Bellamy, sitting close with him under a blanket and asking obnoxious questions about what everyone on-screen was wearing; thought about sharing headphones to listen to music and Bellamy might put his arm around Murphy because the cord didn’t go very far; thought about trying dinner one more time and seeing if they couldn’t get through it without an octagon brawl, and maybe at the end they would walk out into the night chill and laugh about something they overheard in the restaurant and then maybe something crazy would happen, and it would taste like dinner mints, and be totally fucking movie awesome. Or something like that.

Murphy knew Bellamy didn’t feel the same. He wasn’t remotely convinced Bellamy ever really meant what he said; that he _liked_ Murphy, because, come on. On the off-chance it was true and uninfluenced by any sort of chemical compound or betting pool— it surely wasn’t the case anymore.

Before that date from hell Murphy had been waiting for something terrible to happen, been waiting for that meteor that would blow up his house or the wildfire that would consume the earth. Murphy guessed that, all along, he was the terrible thing that came just as things were getting good.

There was no need to unpack why Murphy might’ve opened his hands and found a pearl between them and screamed and thrown it as far as he could, why he might have bullied the hell out of the only guy who’d ever seen Murphy as more than his cane and his other cane (penis).

Good things didn’t happen to Murphy. Good things got taken away as soon as he dared to want them. He wasn’t often keen on taking risks like that; but Bellamy sort of made him feel brave, at least the second time around, and if he''d just had a do-over…

But he knew Bellamy was over it, back on whatever pills he should’ve been taking the entire time, and Murphy knew it was for the best that they stayed friends.

He traced the dots on the page for the hundredth time, mouthing the stupid, stupid words: _Murphy, it OK. Bad idea. Sorry. Still qfriends. Hopefvlly long time. Sorry stsound like caveman. Braille hard!. XOXO. Can’t babkspace_

He smiled a little, always so begrudgingly fond of Bellamy Blake. This was good. This was enough. This was for the best.

Mrs. Cartwig, whose voice had long since become the “wah woh wah woh” of the Peanuts’ teacher, was coming to the end of her lesson. Murphy stopped his recording of the class and gathered his bag, and as he made to surgically slide the letter into a folder like it was the freaking Declaration of Independence, his desk was nudged by the well-intentioned but apparently clown-shoes-wearing girl behind him.

He reflexively let go of the note to hang onto his things and it disappeared, fluttering quietly to the floor. The girl’s apology went ignored as Murphy abandoned his bag to the floor and got on hands and knees to feel around for the note, an audience be damned. That was the most important piece of paper in the world.

“Looking for something?” said Connor, fluttering a paper, which was promising in that Murphy was never getting his note back.

Murphy sighed and sat back in his seat. He quickly thought of 8,000 ways to kill Connor, took a moment to imagine smothering him in great detail, and then let it roll off his back. That was the kind of meditative shit he did now. Monk shit.

“What’s this? A love letter?” Connor asked, snickering as the paper was snatched away from him by one of the other stooges.

Murphy heard the rough sound of fingers running over the bumps, rapidly back and forth, as Myles— affecting a surprisingly engaging monster truck derby commentator voice— declared, “’Congratulations from the Council of Getting No Pussy! You remain our top contender for the seventeenth year in a row, weighing in at negative nine-thousand pussy!”

Myles received a high-five. “Nice, man,” said Dax. “Write that down for your stand-up.”

_Deep breaths. Don’t engage,_ meditated Murphy. _Even though everything about this is a gold mine. Don’t engage._

“Can you hear, dipshit?” asked Connor, almost sounding genuinely concerned. Murphy was touched.

Suddenly the note was crumpled up and thrown back at him, landing in Murphy’s lap. He calmly smoothed it out on his desk, flattening each corner with care.

Murphy was surprised to find that he was calm, and not just pretending to be. He felt peaceful, lucid. It wasn’t him against the world. It was him and Bellamy, and their own secret code. 

And just like that, they lost interest— as if Murphy never meant anything at all. Truly crushing.

“Aw, looks like Goggles is dreaming,” Connor cooed predatorily, moving onto a new target in the gangly stoner. Jasper snored, and Connor took an audible step toward his desk.

“I will skin you,” said Monty Green, and the bullies took their seats again, and that was the end of it.

Murphy quite liked that kid.

Bellamy and Murphy had become a bit of a four-legged creature, and struggled to shimmy their way into the locker room through a door meant for one man. Bellamy blurted a laugh and shoved Murphy through.

“Enough of the Bert and Ernie routine,” decided Murphy, sweeping his way through their stripping teammates. He dropped his backpack on the bench between lockers and folded up his cane. “We need to set a precedent for who goes first and who comes behind.”

“Nose goes,” blurted Bellamy. Murphy’s hand reflexively flew to his face, and for some reason he panicked and plugged his nose.

“I win,” Bellamy said. “I go in front.”

“Not fair!” honked Murphy. He released his nose. “What if you cheated?”

“I don’t cheat.”

“You have an actual criminal record,” retorted Murphy, unlocking his locker. “We need a referee.”

“We don’t have any friends,” reasoned Bellamy, voice muffled as he tugged a shirt over his head.

“What about those girls? The—“ Murphy flapped his hand. “You know.”

“Clarke and Lexa?”

“Those.”

Bellamy snorted, and punctuated it by throwing his shoes into the bottom of his locker. “Fine, we’ll recruit the only teammates who tolerate us to waste time deciding which of us gets dibsies.”

“Good,” agreed Murphy. “I’m glad that we can be mature about this.”

Bellamy chuckled, and Murphy felt warm all over. He changed quickly into his gym clothes, back turned to Bellamy as he waited on the bench, tapping his fingers against the smooth wood.

It was just as Murphy was closing his locker and locking up that he finally thought— and then dared— to mention it.

“Thanks for the note.”

Bellamy breathed in sharply. “Was it alright? English?”

“Primarily English. A little brutish.”

“Charming?” Bellamy asked.

Murphy’s grin softened, and he was glad he was still facing his locker. “Quite.”

“I can talk like that all the time if you want,” said Bellamy, his voice clearer as Murphy joined him on the bench to force his way into tied sneakers. “Oogh oogh. Us run. Beat humans. Get snack.” He then slapped his chest for effect. It was all very Broadway.

“Christ, stop it, Blake. We’re nowhere near my fainting couch.”

Bellamy laughed again, taking Murphy’s arm in his as they made their way out to the home meet. “Seriously though, we have to stop at the gas station. I’m gonna want Doritos after this.”

“Or a granola bar.”

“Or Doritos,” Bellamy suggested cheerfully.

Murphy just shook his head and smiled, listening to their footfall echoing all around the huge, empty gym. “Only a few more meets until sectionals,” he mentioned. “Got any summer plans? Cancún? Dubai?”

Bellamy shrugged. “I can steal some beers from work and we can drink at the abandoned pool.”

“You spoil me,” complimented Murphy.

They breached the school lawn, headed toward the field where distant voices chattered, and Murphy breathed in freshly-mown grass and that lingering, bright chemical smell of aerosol field marking paint.

“Actually, I don’t think this season is gonna cut it for my community service hours. Found out someone took over my aunt’s ranch after all; I was thinking about volunteering there. I figure it’s applicable to my crime, considering the, uh, animal endangerment and all.”

“Yeah,” drawled Murphy, “that doesn’t sound super good out of context.”

“No it does not,” agreed Bellamy. “Anyway, if you ever get bored…”

“Come hang out in your barn? Yippee,” intoned Murphy. He didn’t like animals. He didn’t like slobber, or the smell of shit, or the smell of shit that had been eaten and was now being breathed. He was sorry if that was for some reason sociopathic.

“You get to pet them, and feed them pellets! It’s awesome, you’d like it.”

Murphy resented that he should be sent into a fit of ecstasy over _pellets_. “If I get swallowed by a snake and the snake ends up comically shaped like me I’ll never forgive you.”

Bellamy barked a laugh. “What kind of establishment do you think this is?”

“One where they might see fit to leave repeated offenders in charge of large animal predators,” said Murphy, jabbing an elbow into Bellamy’s ribs. He _oof’_ ed satisfyingly.

“Maybe they’ll reject me and we’ll know for sure that it’s a legitimate business. I was thinking of going by to apply this weekend.” He paused, sweetening his voice. “I could use some moral support.”

Knowing damn well he’d do anything Bellamy asked, even if half the time it ended in tears, Murphy gave a great, heaving sigh.

“I’ll have you know your propensity for shenanigans is taking my blood pressure to a very dark place.”

“It’ll be fun. You’ll see,” Bellamy promised, tugging Murphy closer by the crook of his arm. 

All at once, Murphy realized that they had just promised each other a summer. Not just a few hours after school, breathlessly silent over hills and in valleys, or the odd excursion here and there, but an entire summer.

Summer would be long, hot days with nothing to do; lying in front of box fans and telling distorted secrets into the spinning blades; dropping by Bellamy’s work and buying one of those huge drumstick ice creams with all the peanuts as an excuse to hang around; sitting in lawn chairs until the humid air cooled, not mentioning the mosquitoes just to spend a little more time together.

Suddenly, there was far more than a running season to this friendship. This bizarre friendship that hit him like a truck and rolled him beneath its tires about a hundred times, and still kept dragging his guts along the asphalt.

He imagined it was going to hurt very badly if the truck ever stopped.

Bellamy had to admit that Murphy was being a good sport about the whole thing. Naturally, he had already complained about thirteen different things, but had not yet thrown himself out of the vehicle, which Bellamy considered a win.

“This stuff smells,” he griped of the bucket of pellets between his thighs, but Bellamy imagined it must not have been that gripping of a stench, as Murphy had at one point forgot what they were doing and reached into the bucket like he was going for a chicken wing.

“I’ll roll down a window.”

“No!” shouted Murphy, gripping the bucket tightly as his shield from the world came down and the earthen, farm smell of well-grazed fields and distant crap billowed into the car. “Roll it back up!”

“The whole point of this is kind of having it down,” reasoned Bellamy. “How else do you expect to feed the animals?””

“I expect to hold this in front of the window and make them feel bad like I’m a wealthy Frenchman, that’s what!”

His dead aunt’s ranch and petting zoo had been modernized by its new owners, turned into a drive-thru animal park, which Murphy apparently considered to be ‘spaghetti-on-the-wall bullshit’ and ‘hadn’t gotten the memo that all new inventions would be based on the first three words blurted by any patient in a maximum-security psychiatric facility.’

“What if they scratch the car? Or flip it?”

“They have manners. No one would feed them otherwise.”

“What if they get _in_ the car?”

“Personally I wouldn’t let them in.”

Murphy swore, cringing as Bellamy rolled his own window down. Bellamy turned the radio— forever now on Murphy's rock station— to a quiet shimmer, and smiled as a zebra loped slowly their way, ducking its big, striped head. As it came close to the car, it turned its snout into Bellamy’s hand and snorted a breath of warm air against the skin of his palm.

“What… is that?” Murphy asked, his voice shaky.

“Zebra,” said Bellamy.

“Let me out of here.”

“Door’s unlocked. You’re welcome to walk back to the gate.”

Murphy turned slowly toward Bellamy, his eyes cast off but his body and general aura successfully exuding a hateful stare. “You kidnapped me.”

“I did no such thing. Now put some pellets in your hand and stick it out the window.”

“Un-uh,” protested Murphy, crossing his arms and shrinking into himself like a tortoise that hadn’t quite figured it out yet. Bellamy rolled his eyes and reached into the bucket in Murphy’s lap to scoop up a handful of pellets.

“Here you go,” he mumbled to the zebra, stroking its snout as it ate from his palm. He grinned as it ambled off after just the one serving like it hadn’t really needed the snack but felt obligated to see if it was carrots, just this once.

“See? The zebra walked away. Perfectly peaceful. No mauling. Stick out your hand.”

“Stick it up your butt,” Murphy said petulantly, and sank lower in his seat.

Bellamy looked out of the window past Murphy at the bison that was trudging toward the car, dragging up clouds of red dust from the stripped grass along the trail’s edges. It was as big as Bellamy’s car, humpbacked like a beer-bellied old man who’d sat in a recliner all his life. It was coming straight toward Murphy.

“You’re gonna want to get some food in your hand, like, now,” Bellamy advised, grinning hugely as it got closer and closer. Murphy was still pursing his lips and shaking his head, unwilling to participate.

The bison’s thudding stomps came to a halt, and Murphy straightened up in his seat. Then the animal leaned its massive head into the window, and opened its mouth, and promptly began to make out with Murphy's entire head.

Murphy was silent, dead silent, as the bison dragged a long, black tongue up his cheek, into his hair, and finally retreated it.

Bellamy didn’t know what went through Murphy’s mind. He didn’t understand Murphy, and had come to accept that he never would, because Murphy wasn’t really meant to be understood. This belief was reinforced as Murphy stabbed a hand into the bucket and shoved his handful of pellets into the bison’s face.

He stared bewildered as Murphy passively sat and let the bison lick his hand clean. “That’s all it took? A kiss?”

“It defeated me. I was defeated.”

“In a battle of… wits?”

“More like gay chicken,” grumbled Murphy, and scooped up another handful of pellets for the bison.

Bellamy sat back and smiled happily as Murphy conceded his apparent loss and fed the animal, and eventually raised a tentative hand to stroke the flat, bony expanse of coarse fur between the bison’s giant eyes.

Sun poured through the gradient tint on Bellamy’s windshield, casting a sort of emerald glow across Murphy’s face as the rest of him was bathed in golden sun. His body language was calming, settling into himself and maybe something new as he stroked the animal, seemingly at peace. He ran his fingers experimentally over the patient bison’s wet nose, and reeled back in surprise as he touched its long, brittle eyelashes. He looked in that moment like some creature of the wood, doing as he was meant to do.

When the bison finally ambled off, Murphy sat back in his seat, and was finally quiet.  Bellamy smiled and put the car into gear, taking them farther along the path, and farther still from the gate.

“Monkey.”  


“No.”  


Murphy startled as the ostrich slammed its head into the bucket again. He shot out a hand to briefly touch its noodle neck and then snatched it protectively back in.

“Tail. Monkey tail,” he declared.

“No. Stop guessing monkey.” Bellamy had to move this along. It was much easier when the mystery animal wasn’t perpetually high on cocaine by evolution, and Murphy could actually touch the thing. “It’s a bird,” Bellamy offered, generously.

Murphy sucked in a breath. “Chicken.”  


“What?”

“Many chickens?”

Bellamy knit his brows, looking between Murphy and the ostrich as it drilled its face into the bucket again. “Stacked up in a trench coat? No. It’s one big bird.”

“P—“

Bellamy closed his eyes. “Don’t say penguin.”

Murphy jolted in his seat at the same time as the ostrich dove in once more, flinging pellets all over Bellamy’s poor car. “Flamingo. Flamingo!”

His expression was wide open, his fists clenched. Bellamy sighed, shaking his head at the ostrich and its 8-ball eyes. “Yeah, you got it man.”

Murphy slumped in his seat with a sigh, pleased. “God, I’m so good at this. I’m like a freakin’ zoologist.”

Bellamy hummed, putting the car in gear and rolling on past a small sounder of spotted pigs. Murphy actually was quite good when he wasn’t guessing blindly. No pun intended.

“What’s hot?” asked Murphy as they rolled to a stop again, having forgotten to pretend he didn’t care and wasn’t enjoying himself. In Murphy-speak, he was all but giddy.

Grinning ear to ear, Bellamy took the bucket from Murphy’s lap and slid it onto the dashboard. Then, to Murphy’s obvious confusion at its mechanical sound, he opened the car’s sunroof.

“Get up on the console.”

“What?”

Bellamy kept smiling, staring up through the sunroof. “Stand up on the console. The sunroof’s open.”

“You better not be making me look stupid.”

“I’m not, swear.”

Murphy hesitated, his thick brows scrunched together, but slowly got into his knees and felt his way onto the console. He reached up and groped around until he found the edges of the sunroof, and stayed crouched there.

“I don’t like surprises,” he reminded Bellamy.

Bellamy's gaze switched between Murphy's eyes, so close to Bellamy, sparkling like sun on the sea. He pushed gently up on Murphy's elbow. “You’ll like this one. Stand up.”

Murphy stood, just his legs sticking out of the ceiling of the car then, the stringy tears on his jeans fluttering as spring air blew in through all the windows. His chucks were leaving dirty shoe prints on the console, and for some reason, Bellamy thought he might not scrub them off later.

“Wind north-northeast, Captain. Skies clear,” Murphy announced. “Can I come down now? Before I get… egged, or something?”

“Nope,” said Bellamy, getting onto his knees and scooping up a handful of food from the bucket on the dash. “I’m coming up.”

“What?!” squeaked Murphy, just as Bellamy nudged his way onto the console, stomping all over Murphy’s feet and wedging up into the sunroof next to him. Some of the pellets had squeezed through his fingers and jumped ship, but he still had most of them.

They were crammed into the sunroof’s gap in such a way that they had ended up Bert and Ernie’ing again, with Bellamy pressed along half of Murphy’s back.  It was a little uncomfortable, a little compromising, even, but in a few seconds, Murphy’d forget all about it.

He took Murphy’s hand, which unfurled easily to Bellamy. He poured the pellets into Murphy’s palm and then flicked the underside of his hand, suggesting he raise it up. Murphy did, face still twisted in confusion.

From above, one giraffe of many brought down its huge head, slowly, blinking with the big, starry black eyes of a newborn. The people standing up in cars around them, all stretching toward the high pen, gasped as they got the same treatment.

The giraffe carefully licked Murphy’s hand, accepting his offering. Murphy stumbled on the console in surprise, and Bellamy steadied him with an arm around the waist, neither of them much thinking about it in the presence of the beast.

Murphy raised his other hand to rest it on the giraffe’s broad neck, and gently shifted it up and over to feel the red fur of its short mane. He brushed up its neverending length until his arm would stretch no higher. His bewildered expression suddenly went blank, and then slowly but surely, bloomed.

“No. Fucking. Way.”

If Bellamy were to ever write a book about a day in his life, he would have chosen that day on the ranch. It was seared into his memory: sunbeams clawing through the trees just to lie dappled across Murphy’s skin; the sound of his awed laughter, low and full like wind humming through old glass jars; the reverent way he touched every living thing, when it came down to it. The way his heart must have been pounding so hard he stopped thinking straight, and clasped tight to Bellamy’s hand.

He'd left the side of it on the car roof so long that the hot metal had started to burn his skin, but it was worth it if it meant Murphy didn’t let go.

Bellamy didn’t know how to stop loving someone. He’d never had to try before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might be back in my groove...?
> 
> consider leaving a comment to let me know your thoughts, if any. very short or very long, very coherent or very incoherent i will cherish them all. its nice to hear back. thank u for reading <3
> 
> p.s. idk if this is just a regional thing bc it seems common where i live but not in other places so i thought i’d mention that this drive-thru zoo bizarro world is based on a real place i’ve been. i have a polaroid picture somewhere of me and a blurry ostrich. a bison licked my friend’s face. best day of my life


End file.
